Early Bird Breakfast
In the context of Brexit and less cooperative governments both in Warsaw and Rome, France and Germany have been realizing that they need new partners to push forward the European integration agenda. Their attention has turned to Spain, the fourth largest economy in the Eurozone, which has been growing robustly for the past five years and is staunchly pro-European.
However, there are also doubts whether Spain has the economic and diplomatic muscle as well as the political stability to fill in for other European heavyweights. It also remains unclear whether it even wants to be the third partner in a well-established marriage.
Bringing together policy-makers and experts from Germany, France and Spain just two days after the Spanish Parliamentary election of 28th April, we are going to discuss the prospects of “a new Big Three” European cooperation in light of the Spanish election results and the upcoming European elections.
Panelists:
Miguel Otero-Iglesias, PhD
Senior Analyst at the Elcano Royal Institute, Spain
Gregory Bledjian
Deputy Head of Division Southern Europe, Federal Foreign Office of Germany
Dr Claire Demesmay
Head of the Franco-German Relations Program, DGAP
Julian Rappold, Research Fellow, Alfred von Oppenheim Center for European Policy Studies, DGAP, will chair the discussion, which will be held in English.
