This seminar is part of the "European Governance" program series.

After decades of ambiguity towards European integration, the United States is pushing for Europe to become a genuine actor in security and foreign policy. As Vice President Biden put it at the 2013 Munich Security Conference, “a strong and capable Europe is profoundly in America’s interest, and I might add, presumptuously, the world’s interest.”

In principle, Europeans have accepted that closer defense cooperation is essential in order to maintain, and hopefully expand, existing military capabilities, and in order to reinforce mutual trust and contribute to a convergence in common goals and strategic cultures. But the sad reality is that decision-makers have not yet been willing to take the necessary decisions and disagree about what that means. In matters of European security and defense, the gap between rhetoric and policy is wider than in every other area of the European agenda, despite ever-shrinking defense budgets, declining capabilities, and the US “pivot.”

The European Council in December of 2013, focusing on defense and security issues for the first time in many years, will have to deliver ambitious projects - and member states will have to deliver when it comes to their implementation. The European Security Strategy from 2003 is in dire need of an update. And the EU’s new High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, who will assume office in 2014, will have the difficult task of developing a genuine "one voice approach", a common European foreign and security policy.

A number of fundamental issues will need to be addressed: European security policy priorities, the EU level of ambition and, even larger, the purpose and influence of the EU in a world in which we will increasingly struggle to make ourselves heard. Are EU countries ready and willing to truly join forces and pool resources?

The talk will address current efforts to enhance European security and defense policy, the political feasibility of further steps, Germany’s responsibility to push the agenda forward, and what these efforts in European defense and security policy mean for the United States.

Wolfgang Ischinger was the Federal Republic of Germany's Ambassador to London from 2006-2008. Prior to this assignment, he was the German Ambassador to the United States of America from 2001 to 2006. In 2007, he also represented the European Union in the Troika negotiations on the future of Kosovo.

Wolfgang Ischinger studied law at the universities of Bonn and Geneva and obtained his law degree in 1972.  He did graduate and postgraduate work at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and at Harvard Law School, Cambridge/USA (M. A., Fletcher School, 1973).

Ambassador Ischinger has published widely on foreign policy, security, and arms control policy as well as on European and transatlantic issues. He is a member of the Trilateral Commission, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, and of the Governing Board of SIPRI, Stockholm. He is Co-Chair of the Euro-Atlantic Security Initiative (Carnegie Endowment) and a member of the Global Zero Commission. He also serves on the Boards of the Atlantic Council of the U. S., of the American Institute of Contemporary German Studies (AICGS), of the American Academy, Berlin and of SWP, Berlin. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Tübingen.

This seminar is part of the French Culture Workshop series sponsored by the Stanford Humanities Center, the Division of  Literatures, Cultures and Languages Research Unit, the France-Stanford Center and The Europe Center.

This seminar is part of the "European Governance" program series.

The Lisbon treaty, by generalizing the co-decision procedure, has led in several issue areas to an increased implication of the European parliament (EP) in decision-making processes. While some scholars take this as evidence that the European Union has become more democratic, probably a minor change in the EP's Rules of procedure may potentially reinforce accountability even more strongly. This rule change ensures that all final passage votes are carried out by roll call, thus allowing citizens to be informed about their members of the EP's (MEPs') decisions. In this paper I assess whether party group pressure varies between final passage votes and in other legislative votes taken in the EP.

Simon Hug (PhD University of Michigan) is professor of  political science at the University of Geneva (Switzerland). His research interests are at the intersection of comparative politics and international relations, focusing on decision-making processes, institutions and conflict resolution.  His publications appear in various journals, among them the Annual Review of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, European Journal of Political Research, European Union Politics, International Organization, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Party Politics, Political Analysis,  Public Choice, Review of International Organizations, as well as in several edited volumes and books. 

This seminar is part of the "Europe and the Global Economy" series.

With the creation of the euro, the European Union embarked on a grand experiment. From the beginning, member countries had widely different degrees of budget, or fiscal, transparency. Early warnings about the potential of moral hazard in public finances as a consequence of asymmetric information about fiscal decisions were largely disregarded. In this paper, we analyze the political origins of differences in adherence to the fiscal framework of the euro. We identify in detail how manipulation of subcomponents of Stock-Flow Adjustments in national accounts is used to produce electoral cycles under the radar of the budget surveillance system of the EU. We show how these domestic incentives to use fiscal policy for electoral purposes and respond to fiscal rules at the supranational level interacted with limited budget transparency at the level of national fiscal authorities to produce a systematic undermining of the Economic and Monetary Union through employment of fiscal gimmicks or creative accounting.

David Dreyer Lassen (PhD 2002, Copenhagen) is Professor of Economics at the University of Copenhagen. His research is in empirical political economy and public economics, and includes work on fiscal transparency, political budget cycles, the politics of budgeting, and quasi-experiments in political behavior and political attitudes. His publications includes articles in American Economic Journal-Economic Policy, American Journal of Political Science, American Political Science Review, Journal of Public Economics and the Journal of Law, Economics and Organization. He has been a visiting scholar at IQSS, Harvard University, and currently holds a Starting Grant from the European Research Council.