January 11, 2022, 6:30 - 8:00 p.m. CET

Starting in January 2022, France will hold the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union for six months. While France’s previous EU presidency in 2008 was overshadowed by the financial crisis, this time other enormous challenges call for effective and joint action by the EU: the repercussions of the covid-19 pandemic and the emerging economic consequences of the world’s excessive fiscal policies to tackle it, the EU’s significant internal struggles, multiple crises in its immediate neighborhoods, as well as international issues from climate change to smoldering global conflicts.

Moreover, France’s upcoming presidency will be dominated by the French presidential election campaign. Some of the projects that President Macron intends to push ahead in this context have already been decided upon: “modernization” of the Stability and Growth Pact – the general escape clause activated in March 2020 will expire in March 2022 –, introduction of a “carbon border tax”, “greening” of trade agreements, e.g. with China, reform of the Schengen Agreement, and strengthening of EU cooperation on security and defense.
What chances are attributed to the French Agenda, which France subsumes under the motto “Recovery, power, belonging”? On which support from other EU countries can the French President count? How will the French election campaign affect France’s EU Presidency?

Panel

Johanna Möhring
Research Fellow at the Henry Kissinger Chair for Security and Strategic Studies, CASSIS

Tara Varma
Policy Fellow and Head of the Paris office of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR)

Rem Korteweg
Senior Research Fellow, Head of Strategic Initiatives and Outreach, Cingendael Institute

Moderation

Andreas Noll
Deutsche Welle and Deutschlandfunk

In cooperation with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and the Institut français des Pays-Bas.

This event will be held with simultaneous German and English translation.