On 22nd May, FES-Israel together with IASEI, the Israeli Association for the Study of European Integration hosted a panel discussion on “Defining Global Actorness? The EU at 60” at the Carmel Academic Centre in Haifa.
Keynote speaker Prof. Steven Blockmans of the University of Amsterdam spoke about the European Global Strategy and examined it based on various testing grounds, such as the enlargement and the neighborhood policy, the European reaction to the Crimea crisis and the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) of the EU. In short presentations, the panelists discussed various aspects regarding the question whether the EU can be called a global actor, and reflected on the relations to Israel.
The group of panelists included Mark Gallagher of the EU delegation to Israel, Avivit Bar-Ilan, director of the department for European Organizations at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Prof. Nellie Munin, author of numerous publications on European law and Dr. Rem Korteweg of the Clingendael Institute in The Hague and European coordinator of the Israel European Policy Network (IEPN).
To sum it up, none of the speakers defined the EU unequivocally as global actor. Reasons for this include the lack of common interests and the internal integration crisis. However, regarding Israel, some panelists emphasized the potential for cooperation in fields such as security policies, counter-terrorism, energy, environmental protection, and cyber policies.
You can download the Program of the Panel Discussion here!
