11-12 April 2014
Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz
An international consortium of four universities is organising a workshop on EU-Russia relations on 11-12 April 2014 at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. The workshop brings together experts to reflect on the way in which we have been studying EU-Russia relations and to explore new approaches. The rationale for the workshop is that academic analysis has often been biased by EU-centric or Russia-centric views and that there is a need to develop more transnational and innovative perspectives.
The workshop comes at a time when EU-Russia relations are in a deep crisis, following tensions over Ukraine and Crimea. While this makes discussing alternative approaches all the more challenging, it recognises the need to consider longer term structural reasons for the logic competition and the negative spiral of trust which has developed between the West and Russia.
Keynote speeches at the workshop will be held by leading international experts: Prof. Dr. Richard Sakwa (University of Kent) and Viacheslav Morozov (University of Tartu). Senior and junior experts will present papers on different aspects of EU-Russia relations: theory, method, identity, norms, rule transfer, the common neighbourhood and specific policies.
This workshop is part of the Jean Monnet Multilateral Research Group ‘EU-Russia Relations: Developing a Transnational Perspective’ and is organised with the support of the LLP Programme of the European Union. The partner universities are: University of Kent (Tom Casier), Carleton University (Joan DeBardeleben), St. Petersburg State University (Tatiana Romanova) and Johannes Gutenberg University (Arne Niemann). As part of the same project a policy conference will be helf in Brussels by the end of 2014. The project's final conference is scheduled for June 2015 in St. Petersburg.
For further information please contact Tom Casier, University of Kent (t.casier@kent.ac.uk) or Petra Guasti, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (guasti@uni-mainz.de).