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EU Strategic Autonomy: Views from Berlin and Paris on a more capable and self-sufficient Europe

Webinar · 21.10.2020 14:30 - 15:45

The recording of the webinar:

The EU outlined the ambition to increase its strategic autonomy in the 2016 Global Strategy. While the question of how the EU can be more capable in the area of security and defence is not new, the Covid-19 crisis has highlighted additional vulnerabilities of the EU in an ever more competitive international environment. Economic and technological dependencies have moved to the forefront and prompted a debate on a possibly stronger role of the state in increasing the EU’s resilience to global crises. Lately, France and Germany have strongly supported initiatives to help the EU act and think more strategically, including the formulation of a “Strategic Compass” for the EU. However, member states’ views on the right level of ambition and concrete policies in support of strategic autonomy still differ. This seminar features views from policy planners from Paris and Berlin. It aims to discuss the level of ambition, concrete steps and the challenges of the EU’s quest to increase its strategic autonomy.

The webinar is organized in cooperation with the 2020 German EU Council Presidency.

Registration to Maija Salonen (maija.salonen@fiia.fi) by Monday 19 October.

Speakers:
Christoph Schwegmann, Senior Defence Advisor, Policy Planning Staff, German Federal Foreign Office
Manuel Lafont Rapnouil, Director, Centre for Analysis, Planning and Strategy, French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs

Comments:
Sari Rautio, Director, Unit for Security Policy and Crisis Management, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
Nicole Koenig, Deputy Director, Jacques Delors Centre, Berlin

Discussion and Q&A
Moderator:
Niklas Helwig, Leading Researcher, FIIA

Speakers

Speaker

Christoph Schwegmann

Senior Defence Advisor, Policy Planning Staff, German Federal Foreign Office

Dr. Christoph Schwegmann is Senior Defence Advisor in the Policy Planning Staff at the German Federal Foreign Office. He is seconded from the German Ministry of Defence. Before that he was speechwriter and advisor to the German Chief of Defence Staff. In previous positions he worked in the Office of the Minister of Defence, in the NATO IS (PASP) and in the MoD’s Policy Planning Staff.

Speaker

Manuel Lafont Rapnouil

Director, Centre for Analysis, Planning and Strategy, French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs

Manuel Lafont Rapnouil is the head of the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs’ Centre for Analysis, Planning and Strategy (CAPS), France’s policy planning staff. He is a career diplomat, with a strong experience in multilateral affairs. He was also a visiting fellow for the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the head of the Paris office of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

comments

Sari Rautio

Director, Unit for Security Policy and Crisis Management, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland

Sari Rautio serves as the Director for Security Policy and Crisis Management within the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland since April 2018. Previously she held the position of Director for EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (2015-2018) in Helsinki and the Deputy Representative of Finland to the EU Political and Security Committee (PSC) in Brussels (2012-2015). Her earlier assignments within the Ministry entailed security policy, crisis management, UN policies, and the Middle East.

comments

Nicole Koenig

Deputy Director, Jacques Delors Centre, Berlin

Nicole Koenig is Deputy Director at the Jacques Delors Centre in Berlin. Her areas of expertise include EU foreign and security policy, institutional questions, and migration policy. Prior to joining the Jacques Delors Centre, she worked for the Trans European Policy Studies Association in Brussels, the Istituto Affari Internazionali in Rome, the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam, as well as the Department of War Studies at King’s College in London.

Moderator

Niklas Helwig

Leading Researcher, FIIA

Niklas Helwig is a Leading Researcher at FIIA. His research focuses on EU foreign and security policy, German foreign and security policy, as well as the transatlantic security alliance. Before he returned to FIIA in 2019, he worked at the RAND Corporation, at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies (AICGS, Washington), at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP, Berlin) and at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS, Brussels). He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cologne and the University of Edinburgh (‘co-tutelle’).