Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship

***FOR EUROPEAN/NATO MEMBER AND US/CANADIAN NATIONALS***

In this first of two sessions, Suvi Seppaleinen, MC/MPA 2019 and Kevin Prager, MC/MPA 2013, both working in senior roles with the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), reflect on their career paths into the two major European foreign policy institutions. They will offer insights into the competitive entrance examinations and different paths into the institutions. They will discuss the impact of a Kennedy School degree on career advancement in their organizations and how best to navigate these major bureaucracies, as well as share their views on how best to craft impact-oriented careers in European foreign and defense policy.

The Treaty of Lisbon established the most developed array of EU foreign policy instruments in the history of European integration, which include a permanent President of the European Council, a revamped High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and a European External Action Service. Ten years after the entry into force of the treaty, an assessment of the effectiveness of such instruments for transatlantic dialogue is timely and necessary. What impact have EU foreign policy instruments had on transatlantic dialogue? How have these instruments been ineffective? What could be done to make them more effective?

Project on Europe Fellow Alvaro Renedo will address these issues, in light of his research findings and his experience as former Director of the Department of European Affairs and G20 in the Presidency of the Government of Spain.

PLEASE NOTE: This seminar will be conducted via Zoom. You can join the video conference here: https://harvard.zoom.us/j/854417819 OR call in by dialing +1 929 436 2866. Meeting ID: 854 417 819.

In recent years the crisis of the transatlantic relationship and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has become a common theme in media, and various scholars have frequently questioned the futures of both entities. Not only are the new sovereigntist and populist trends within the NATO members calling the relevance of the transatlantic relationship into question, but some have found a reason to identify a crisis in the transatlantic relationship from the rise of global actors and the emergence of China as a great power in particular. China’s economic recovery after its “century of humiliation” is reshaping the international geopolitics and shifting the economic epicenter of the world from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Co-sponsored by the Harvard University Asia Center; Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies; and Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship, Harvard Kennedy School