Please join the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship for a panel discussion on efforts to advance an anti-racist transatlantic agenda with three policymakers: Caroline Abadie, Member of the French National Assembly; Oona King, Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Snap Inc and former Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom; and Desirée Cormier Smith, Senior Advisor in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. This discussion will be moderated by Torrey Taussig, Research Director, and Erika Manouselis, Project Coordinator.

Systemic racism is a critical problem for societies on both sides of Atlantic. Following the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in May 2020, protests erupted around the world and sparked national reckonings about the injustices faced by African Americans and Black Europeans. Many of these injustices are the same - from mass incarcerations and racial profiling to health inequities and targeting by xenophobic and racist digital disinformation campaigns.

Meanwhile, President Biden has made racial inequality a major focus for his new administration. He has created a new Chief Diversity Officer role for the U.S. Department of State. The United Kingdom and France have both recently published government commissioned reports on racism and policy recommendations to address racial inequalities within their countries.

What actions can U.S. and European local and national governments take to address issues of systemic racism and minority rights? How do we tackle racism and racial discrimination within our governmental and intergovernmental institutions and increase diversity and inclusion? And how can U.S. and European institutions work together to make progress?

Is the Western alliance, which brought together the United States and Europe after World War II, in an inevitable state of decline, and if so, can anything be done to repair it? There seems little doubt that fragmentation of the Western alliance was under way even before Donald Trump’s unorthodox policymaking broadened the schism. David McKean, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the U.S., and Bart Szewczyk, Adjunct Professor at Sciences Po in Paris, discuss their vision for a “transatlantic renaissance.” 

In this book talk, co-hosted by the Executive Director and Research Director of the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship, Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook and Torrey Taussig, the authors will reflect on how U.S. and European leaders can work together to craft a new Atlantic Charter that would restore the liberal objectives that animated the Western alliance for more than seven decades and reinvent the transatlantic partnership for the challenges of our time.

PLEASE NOTE: This seminar will be conducted via Zoom. Please register in advance for this meeting:

https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMtdOurqz8iGtUdvN37Fn12qGYS0ANlPX30

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Please join the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) and German Council on Foreign Relations’ (DGAP) launch event for the release of the joint report entitled, “Stronger Together: A Strategy for Revitalizing Transatlantic Power,” with Daniela Schwarzer, Director of the German Council on Foreign Relations, Victoria Nuland, Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, and Nicholas Burns, Goodman Family Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations at Harvard Kennedy School.

This publication is the culmination of a year-long project that convened a strategy group of experts and former government officials from the United States and Europe to discuss the crisis in the transatlantic relationship and propose a strategy to revive and strengthen it.  

The project’s report and eight individual action plans argue that after years of mistrust, recrimination and division, the bridge across the Atlantic should be “built back better.” But the U.S. and Europe cannot simply rebuild the ties of a previous era if we are to succeed in meeting today’s challenges. The transatlantic relationship must be rebuilt and reimagined. Our institutions must be strengthened. As the U.S. embraces its allies again, Europe too must rethink its approach to some fundamental issues. 

The task is urgent. The world needs a more powerful and purposeful transatlantic alliance to drive a new global agenda.   

Please use this link to register for the Zoom meeting. 

The United States and Europe have maintained an adversarial relationship with Russia since President Putin illegally annexed Crimea and invaded eastern Ukraine in 2014. The U.S.-Russia relationship was further damaged by Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. How can the U.S. work with European partners to develop a new approach toward Russia that pushes back against Putin’s aggression while making progress on vital interests such as arms control and non-proliferation?

 Please join the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship for a discussion with Michael Carpenter, Managing Director of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. Faculty Chair Nicholas Burns and Research Director Torrey Taussig will moderate the discussion. 

 Dr. Carpenter previously served in the Pentagon as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense with responsibility for Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia, the Balkans, and Conventional Arms Control.  He also served in the White House as a foreign policy advisor to Vice President Joe Biden as well as on the National Security Council as Director for Russia.

PLEASE NOTE: This seminar will be conducted via Zoom. Please register in advance for this meeting:

https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYpcempqjwrEtBPRownPG5_zNFwhEGdRrvD

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

President Eisenhower hoped to see Europe as a “third great power block.”  New European defense initiatives represent a generational ambition for bold action. Can Europe effectively improve its defense investments and capabilities? And should the United States support a strong European security and defense policy?  Join the Project on Europe to discuss EU defense efforts and US policies with Fellow, Dr. Seth Johnston, and Research Director, Dr. Torrey Taussig, as outlined in Dr Johnston's recent Belfer Center policy brief, “A Europe that Protects? : U.S. Opportunities in European Defense.”

PLEASE NOTE: This seminar will be conducted via Zoom. You can join the video conference here: https://harvard.zoom.us/j/318354958 OR call in by dialing +1 312 626 6799. Meeting ID 318 354 958. 

Please join the Project on Europe and the Center for European Studies for an event with Jessica Brandt, Head of Policy and Research, Alliance for Securing Democracy, and Torrey Taussig, Research Director, Project on Europe, on Europe's counter-strategy against Russia and China's assaults on free and open societies across the continent. Sebastián Royo, Professor of Government at Suffolk University, and José Manuel Martinez Sierra, Jean Monnet ad Personam Professor in EU Law and Government at Real Colegio Complutense, will chair the discussion.

This conversation will highlight a spectrum of Russian and Chinese overt and covert activities in Europe, ranging from benign state tools, such as public diplomacy, to more malevolent efforts, including direct interference in electoral processes. Moving forward, it will be incumbent on European policymakers to avoid looking any one vector in isolation and to close vulnerabilities across their political systems, economies and societies.