Speakers

Coming to Johns Hopkins SAIS one can expect excellent courses and professors, but another equally exciting opportunity is the impressive list of speakers the school brings in throughout the year to talk about relevant international issues.

The first speaker of the year came last Friday, and was of particular interest to me. In my undergrad studies I wrote a paper on the Expansion Policies of the European Union and many of the challenges that would be associated with incorporating new members. I was originally inspired to write the paper from a visit to the Czech Republic in 2003 where I had the chance to talk with friends and family there about their impending accession to the Union. While membership was viewed as an overall positive, there were still many concerns with protective politics coming from the more western countries in the Union that made the new Union members feel like second class citizens in some ways. Social, Cultural, and especially Economic differences between many of the old and new member states (at the time) motivated the protective policies. The paper focused on this transition period and the challenges it and future additions to the Union could bring. The paper caught the attention of my professor and he nominated me to present it at a regional Political Science Conference.

The speaker last Friday was Michael Leigh, Director-General of the European Commission on Enlargement. I must admit that it was a really cool academic experience to hear a distinguished speaker talk about an issue I had spent a great deal of time and effort researching in the past. While some of the issues of enlargement have changed over the past few years many similar issues still exist on old and new fronts. Much of the talk focused on the Financial Crisis's effect on the Union and Enlargement, Iceland's recent application to join the Union, and the ever complicated Issue of Turkey pending accession to the Union.

Since the Director-General we have had a speaker who spoke on the Kosovo Independence. Tomorrow we have a speaker on the Stability of the Euro (I personally hope it will start depreciating!!!). I must say in general I am excited for many of the upcoming speakers as they will cover a variety of different international subjects, no doubt a few more may work their way onto my blog in the future.