Conversation on Transatlanticism and Europe Blog

By Victoria Prince Illinois students and staff explore Brussels with representatives from Leuven Our semester of exploring transatlantic relations happened not only in two separate classrooms across the world, but were intertwined when students from each side were able to personally travel this distance. I was fortunate enough to be a part of the University of Illinois delegation that traveled to Leuven, Belgium to meet our international classmates in person. The trip was filled with amazing experiences and unforgettable people that have made a huge impact on me and whom I hope to maintain friendships with throughout my lifetime. I would say that the first full day of the program best exemplifies how incredible the entire journey was. On the Monday morning of our trip, we met in person with the professors of our course and the five students that would be our counterparts traveling to the United States a few weeks later. We saw the diversity in the student body and the impressiv...

By Lindsay Ozburn This blog post was written for the course "Current Issues in Global and EU Affairs", which took place from February 12-April 30, 2018. Protest at the Bourse du Travail in Paris Photograph by Rama, Wikimedia Commons, Cc-by-sa-2.0-fr Immigration patterns into the European Union (EU) over the last few decades have brought about a myriad of discussions of how to care for, integrate, assimilate, and/or “deal with” the presence of sometimes vastly different cultures and sheer volume of new individuals across the EU member states. These questions and discussions are by no means ‘new’. As a hub of economic freedom, democracy, and multiculturalism, the EU is routinely a landing zone for the disenfranchised, those fleeing persecution, and those wanting to experience the successes and freedoms offered by this powerful area of the world. Discussions about the strength of a common European culture and identity are ongoing (see Council of Europe, 2005), recognizi...

By Victoria Bauer This blog post was written for the course "Current Issues in Global and EU Affairs", which took place from February 12-April 30, 2018. Earlier in May 2018, President Trump killed the Iran Deal which sends a strong message that the United States does believe that Iran’s nuclear programs are peaceful and nothing to worry about despite what the international community thinks and Europe’s best interests to keep the deal alive. Historically this issue has been problematic since 2003 after the US attack on Iran and how European leaders want to handle the situation. Smith and Steffenson describe the origins of the Iran Deal as such: “During 2003–4, differences surfaced between the EU member states and the US over how to handle nuclear weapons programs in Iran. These tensions reflected a longstanding divergence of approaches, with the Europeans having emphasized the value of ‘critical dialogue’ with Tehran and the Americans having adopted a strategy based o...

By Alberto M. Burgos Rivera Prof. Gustavo G. Muller lectures at KU Leuven This blog post was written for the course "Current Issues in Global and EU Affairs", which took place from February 12-April 30, 2018. During the second day of our stay in Leuven, me and my colleagues attended a number of presentations, did some sightseeing of the city, and attended a lecture with the MAES students. The presentations we had during the morning were focused on KU Leuven’s promotion as a university institution. The first presentation we attended was given by KU Leuven’s Head of Academic Diplomacy Bart Hendrickx in which he talked to us about KU Leuven’s history, its academic programs, and its global ranking as an institution. The second presentation was given by the Vice Dean of Internationalization Professor Bart Van den Bossche at the Faculty of Arts. Unlike the first presentation, this one was much more focused on the graduate programs offered by the Faculty of Arts. After the p...

By Victoria Prince This blog post was written for the course "Current Issues in Global and EU Affairs", which took place from February 12-April 30, 2018. Across transatlantic lines, there is an increasing trend of populist movements. This trend is spreading across Europe and can be found in both the post-communist countries of Eastern Europe and the well-defined democratic countries in Western Europe. Populist groups and even presidential candidates are gaining ground in the UK, France, Italy, and Germany, among many other states. They strive for a reversal of the European integration that resulted from the European Union. Populism has strong nationalist ideas and sees the EU as a threat to the nation's sovereignty. The entire development of globalization and connectivity has led the populist ideology to focus on increased xenophobic feelings and increased fringe politics. It is found that the rise of populism in Europe is a direct result of the Trump presidency in ...

By Katherine Brown This blog post was written for the course "Current Issues in Global and EU Affairs", which took place from February 12-April 30, 2018. US President Donald Trump recently welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron to the White House, and it was quite the spectacle. If there was any pomp in Washington D.C., it was put on display for the French President. It is not surprising, the French and US military routinely partake in military exercises, spends billions on military equipment – and this is only in the current century (let us not forget who funded the rebellion against the British). The security relationship between France and the United States remains strong even in the face of Donald Trump, who most people assumed would doom any good and meaningful relationships the US has. In fact, President Trump seems to have gotten one memo from the swamp – France matters when it comes to security. While a good relationship between two strong military nations is...

By Rafael A. Rodríguez Diaz This blog post was written for the course "Current Issues in Global and EU Affairs", which took place from February 12-April 30, 2018. The Leuven Roundtable. l-r: Prof. Michael Smith, Mr. Alexandros Papaioannou, Mr. Richard Tibbels, Prof. Simon Duke As part of the graduate-level seminar of EURO 596, which explores current issues in global and European Union (EU) affairs, and in the framework of the Jean Monnet ERASMUS+ and Leuven-Illinois project, “Conversations on Transatlanticism and Europe”, 3 students and I participated in a study abroad trip to the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium during the Spring Break of 2018. As part of our agenda, on March 19, we attended a roundtable entitled: “The Transatlantic Community between Contestation and Cooperation”. This round table was divided into two parts: a) “Contestation, Cooperation and Global Threats in the Transatlantic Security Community”; and b) “Transatlantic Competition, Cooperat...