pro Europe - Austrian Embassy Series
AUSTRIAN EMBASSY - PRO EUROPE would like to invite you to attend:
Will the European Union ever love Democracy?
on Monday, 8 November 2010 from 12:30 – 14:00
at the Residence of the Austrian Embassy, 18 Belgrave Square, SW1
Speakers:
Dr. Sonja Puntscher Riekmann, Vice-Rector for International Relations and Communication, Director of European Union Studies, University of Salzburg
Dr. Michael Shackleton, Head of UK Office of the European Parliament
Chair: Ambassador Dr. Emil Brix
It is claimed that the new Lisbon Treaty made the European Union more democratic by strengthening the role of the European Parliament, increasing the transparency of the Council of Ministers, introducing EU-wide referenda and by bringing the Union’s institutions closer to its citizens. But the German Bundesverfassungsgerichtshof concluded in its ruling on the Lisbon Treaty that the democratic gap between the European institutions and the ability of its citizens to participate on the European level has been narrowed but not closed. Can there ever be a thoroughly democratic European Union? Is an efficient and dynamic democratic system only possible on a national, a member state, level? What is missing to connect the citizens of Europe with Brussels? Has the European Parliament really become a champion of European democracy and why is there still no implementation of the promised instrument of direct democracy?
R.S.V.P. by 01 November 2010 to jutta.alloway(at)bmeia.gv.at
As a lunchtime seminar, light refreshments will be served.
AUSTRIAN EMBASSY - PRO EUROPE Events are free and open to the public unless otherwise stated.
PRO EUROPE is an initiative of the Austrian Embassy in London for discussing European affairs. Its mission is to provide an informal platform for connecting international scholarly and political expertise on European issues, which are relevant for the UK and other European countries, and to discuss international perspectives through scholarship and engagement with practitioners and decision-makers on why governments should be assertive about Europe.
"No European state in the 21st century can lastingly and successfully advocate its interests in the world alone. The major challenges of our modern societies know no border.” (Michael Spindelegger, Austrian Foreign Minister)
About the speakers:
Sonja Puntscher Riekmann is professor for Political Theory with focus on European Policy, Director of the Salzburg Centre of European Union Studies – Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence and vice-rector for international relations and communication at the University of Salzburg. She was a senior lecturer at the Universities of Vienna and Innsbruck since the mid 1990s and visiting Professor at the Humboldt University (Department of Social Sciences) from 2000 to 2001. She was Director of the Institute of European Integration Research at the Austrian Academy of Science in Vienna from 2004 to 2007. Furthermore, she is a member of the Executive Committee of the EU-Network of Excellence on European Governance. Prof Puntscher Riekmann has authored and co-authored many publications on the European Constitution and Parliamentarism, e.g. “The Twilight of Constitutionalism”, “European Administration: Centralisation and Fragmentation as Means of Polity-Building”.
Michael Shackleton is the Head of the UK office of the European Parliament in London since October 2009. He returned to London after spending over 25 years with the Parliament in Brussels and Luxembourg. He joined the Secretariat of the European Parliament in 1981. From 1985 to 1992 he was on the secretariat of the Committee on the Budgets, from 1992 to 1995 he worked within the division responsible for relations between the European Parliament and national parliaments. In 1996 he was Head of the Secretariat of the first parliamentary Committee of Inquiry, from 1997 to 2004 he was Head of Service responsible for conciliations (procedure between the Council and the Parliament). From 2004 to 2009 he was responsible for the establishment of a European Parliament web TV channel (europarltv). Dr Shackleton has lectured and published widely on European Community topics, e.g. “The European Parliament”, “The Institutions of the European Union”.
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The Austrian Embassy London is grateful for the support of the seminar by the Herbert-Batliner-Europainstitut/Salzburg (www.europainstitut.co.at) and for the cooperation of the UK-Representation of the European Commission.
