Since the British electorate voted in favour of the UK leaving the EU in the referendum on 23rd June 2016, hardly a day has gone by without the topic being in the news or the subject of an expert panel. This is not surprising because the process of extracting the UK from the EU looks set to be extraordinarily complex and to have implications that are likely to reach into all areas of policy. Moreover, as the EU can be seen as one of the essential cornerstones of a peaceful Europe and of the liberal international order, Brexit may also turn out to have important, albeit subtle, implications for security and international order. What will be the implications for European security, for the CSDP and European defence cooperation, for the transatlantic relationship and NATO and for the wider liberal international order? These are the questions that will be addressed by a panel of security experts who each focus on these less tangible, but certainly no less important implications of last year’s Brexit vote.
22nd June 2017 – 16.00 – 18.00
BSIS Auditorium, Espace Rolin, Boulevard Louis Schmidt 2a, 1040 Brussels, Belgium
Registration via email at: bsis@kent.ac.uk
Please provide full name and institution of affiliation
Further information:
T: +32 2541 1728 / +44 1227 826295
Programme
16.00 – 16.10 Welcome and introductions
Dr Tom Casier, Brussels School of International Studies
16.10 – 16.25 Brexit and Strategy
Professor Sven Biscop, Egmont
16.25 – 16.40 Future UK Foreign Policy and Security Policy
Professor Richard Whitman, University of Kent
16.40 – 16.55 Brexit and NATO
Dr Jamie Shea, NATO
16.55 – 17.10 Brexit – and the liberal international order?
Professor Trine Flockhart, University of Kent
17.10 – 17.30 Moderated panel discussion
Dr Tom Casier, Brussels School of International Studies
17.30 – 18.00 Q & A
Speaker biographies
Tom Casier is Academic Director of the Brussels School of International Studies as well as Jean Monnet Chair and Reader in International Relations. He is Deputy Director of the Global Europe Centre. He is also Visiting Professor at the University of Leuven, where he lectures on political developments in Central and Eastern Europe. Tom Casier’s research interests include EU-Russia relations (including energy), Russian foreign policy, European Neighbourhood Policy / Eastern Partnership and Europe and global change. Recent articles have appeared in International Politics, Journal of European Integration, Democratization, Geopolitics and Europe-Asia Studies.
Sven Biscop is the director of the Europe in the World programme at the Egmont – Royal Institute for International Relations in Brussels. His research focuses on the foreign, security and defence policies of the European Union, NATO and their Member States. Sven teaches at Ghent University and at the College of Europe in Bruges. He is a member of the Executive Academic Board of the EU’s European Security and Defence College (ESDC). Sven is a Senior Research Fellow within the Global Europe Centre (GEC) at the School of Politics and International Relations of the University of Kent, and an a Senior Associate Fellow of the Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy (AIES). Sven’s latest book is Peace without Money, War without Americans – Can European Strategy Cope? (Ashgate, 2015).
Richard G. Whitman is Professor of Politics and Head of the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent. He is the Director of the Global Europe Centre and also an Associate Fellow of Chatham House. His current research interests include Brexit and especially the future foreign and security and defence policies of the EU and the UK, and the governance and future priorities of the EU. He is the author and editor of twelve books and published over sixty articles and book chapters. Professor Whitman is a regular international media commentator. Recent coverage has included BBC radio and television, Sky, ITV, CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC and he has been quoted by print publications including The Financial Times, Newsweek, Reuters, the International Herald Tribune and the Wall Street Journal. He has given evidence to the UK Parliament on UK and EU foreign and security issues.
Jamie Shea is NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges. He has been working with NATO since 1980 in many different positions such as Director of Policy Planning in the Private Office of the Secretary General, Deputy Assistant Secretary General for External Relations and Spokesman of NATO. Outside NATO, Jamie Shea holds a number of academic positions such as Professor at the Collège d’Europe, Bruges, Visiting Lecturer in the Practice of Diplomacy, University of Sussex, Associate Professor of International Relations at the American University, Washington DC. He also lectures at the Brussels School of International Studies at the University of Kent and at the Security and Strategy institute of the University of Exeter and he is a Senior Transatlantic Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States and a Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics.
Trine Flockhart is Professor of International Relations and Director of Research in the School of Politics and International Relations at University of Kent. She was previously a Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies and a Senior Resident Fellow at the Transatlantic Academy in Washington DC. Her research focuses on international order and systemic change, NATO, European Security, transatlantic relations and the liberal international order. Her most recent publications include ‘The Problem of Change in Constructivist Theory – Ontological Security Seeking and Agent Motivation’ in Review of International Studies and ‘The Coming Multi-Order World’ published in Contemporary Security Policy and awarded the 2017 Bernard Brodie Prize.