The Summit on the Future of Europe is an initiative of Harvard Universityâs Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES). This annual conference convenes renown scholars and public leaders at Harvard University in order debate critical challenges facing Europe.
This years summit dealt with the following questions and topics:
- Is the European Democracy in Crisis?
- Is the Eurozone crisis Over?
- Europe’s Security and foreign Policy Challenges
- from enlargement to Brexit: The future of the European Union
The director of the WZB Research Unit on Democracy and Democratization Wolfgang Merkel was one of the panelists discussing the crisis of the European Democracy. In his statement he stressed the ways in which different conceptualizations of both âcrisisâ and âdemocracyâ might lead to contrasting conclusions regarding the severity of current challenges faced by Europe. His diagnosis of the threat carried by right-wing populism emphasized its more perilous effects for unstable democracies, as well as the necessity to consider its position, within government or in government or in opposition, with the latter possibly offering a corrective for the representational gap.
The executive summary of the summit is available here.
The video recordings of the summit are also available online here.