Once again the Europaeum will be facilitating our usual lively international debate led by Europaeum graduates as part of the next – 25th anniversary Estoril Forum on June 26th  – 28th near Lisbon, organised by our colleagues at the Institute of Political Studies IEP at the Catholica University, before an audience of some 150 participants.  The Europaeum is one of a number of leading partners working with the IEP, this year the conference focusing on the theme Defending the Rule of Law and the Western Tradition of Liberty. Keynote speakers will include Professor Jose Manuel Barroso, who led the European Union for eight years, is now a trustee for the Europaeum, and teaches at the Catholica; Jacques Rupnik from Sciences Po and the College de Bruges, who has collaborated with the Europaeum through our Vaclav Havel Dialogue Project.

Professor Charles Wyplosz, professor of International Economics at the Graduate Institute, Geneva, will chair our next special Europaeum Lecture in our regular series. This will be given by Will Hutton, a noted economic commentator, currently Principal of Hertford College, Oxford University, and Chair of the Oxford Europaeum Group. Mr Hutton, who has regular influential columns  in The Guardian and  The Observer newspaper (where he was once Editor), will be discussing What Next – after Brexit ? In recent columns, Mr Hutton has written on the consequences for international trade that loom after the Brexit and Trump votes in the UK and US, and now he  could add the Renzi referendum vote in Italy (see link here). He has also previously discussed the costs and benefits of globalization (see link here). After beginning his career as a stockbroker and investment analyst, he moved to the BBC as a producer and reporter. He has been Economics Editor of the BBC’s flagship Newsnight programme (1983-88), Editor-in-Chief of the European Business Channel (1988-90), and Economics Editor at the Guardian (1990-96), winning several media awards. He is currently Chair of the Big Innovation Centre Innovation Board.You can read Professor Wyplosz ‘s Europaeum Lecture on Fiscal Discipline in the Monetary Union here.

With American voters poised to choose their 45th President in what has been deemed one of the most volcanic and decisive campaigns in decades, it may be worthwhile to ponder how such elections – from time to time – are considered turning points or watershed moments in the history of US politics. This 58th election – according to some polls – remains finely balanced, with very high stakes. Either way, history is set to be made.

A previous Europaeum Lecture, by Godfrey Hodgson,  journalist, broadcaster, and academic who studied History at Oxford and Pennsylvania, before joining The Observer and The Sunday Times in Washington, looked closely at the impact such events can have. In that lecture, he examined the presidential election as “a device for national introspection”, drawing particularly on the elections of 1876, 1912, 1968, and 2004. At each of these, Hodgson contended, America stood at a crossroads – something few could deny applies equally to 2016. Please read The Other American Presidential Election: Choosing a President and Psychoanalyzing a Nation, delivered at the Campus den Haag at Leiden University in 2004, here.

This year’s Europaeum Academic Council will be hosted by Rector Tomáš Zima, at Charles University in Prague (who featured in our last e-bulletin) on May 12th as part of the  University’s special celebrations to mark the 700th anniversary of the birth of its founder, the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles IV. It will also celebrate Prague’s international links – and membership of the Europaeum, of the COIMBRA Group of ancient universities, and of the UNICA group of universities in capital cities. Europaeum partners – including several Europaeum rectors/deputy rectors –  will participate in a special ceremony in the Aula Magna in the old Carolinum Building at Charles University, as well as in an exhibition, and a special Rectors’ conference on the Legacy of Charles IV – Education and Academic Freedom, Innovation and Open Society. Rectors and deputy rectors from Helsinki, Leiden, the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, and Oxford are taking part.