A conversation between David O’Sullivan, Ambassador of the European Union to the United States, and Adam Tooze, Director of the European Institute. From the European Institute: Ambassador O’Sullivan will discuss the recent developments in the transatlantic relations (including the talks on trade and investment, TTIP, and on data transfer, “privacy shield”) as well as current challenges facing the EU and…
Posts tagged as “European Union”
Anthony Teasdale, the director general of the European Parliamentary Research Service, gave a talk February 8 at Deutsches Haus NYU, replacing Klaus Welle, who had been scheduled to speak. Welle, secretary-general of the European Parliament, was called back to Brussels on short notice to for the build-up to negotiations over David Cameron’s proposed European reforms.
It’s fitting that Teasdale should step in at precisely this moment—when the apparent shortcomings of the European Union seem to widen the Channel every day—to offer an optimistic view. In his estimation, the European Union does not get nearly enough credit for the efficiency with which it completes its routine tasks and is therefore unfairly cast as a doomed polity.
“I am basically allergic to the defeatist or declinist assumptions and philosophy which we very often find in public discussion about the European Union,” he said. “I have been surprised and encouraged by the ability of the member states to work together. This is not a Panglossian view about how the EU operates, don’t get me wrong, but we should always bear in mind the underlying resilience that the system seems to have established.”