DATE: December 11, 2012

TIME: 12 PM

There has been no single “European Crisis” in the past several years. The banking crisis that spread from the United States to Europe in 2008, and the sovereign debt crises that spread from Greece to Portugal and Italy in 2009, are different from the punctured real estate bubbles and bank bailouts that tripped up the Spanish and Irish economies during the same year. Together, however, these concurrent crises have revealed how fragile the idea of a united Europe is in the present, both as a monetary union and as a political ideal. Many have asserted that the answer to the current problems faced by the Eurozone is “more Europe” even as new fissures have opened up between the North and the South, making it difficult to imagine what kinds of policies or institutions might make “more Europe” possible.

The Center for European Studies’ End of Semester Luncheon, “Taking Stock of Europe’s Crises:  Politics, Debt, Recession, and the Euro,” will feature a distinguished panel of experts from the University of Michigan’s faculty. William James Adams (Economics), Dario Gaggio (History), Anna Grzymala-Busse (Political Science), and Daniel Halberstam (Law), will discuss the on-going crises in Europe from the perspective of their respective disciplines in a forum moderated by CES Director Joshua Cole (History). What do economists agree on, and where do they disagree in their analysis of the current situation? How has the present crisis changed the story that historians, political scientists, and specialists in European constitutional law tell about the story of European integration in the second half of the twentieth century? These and other questions will be addressed at this event, which is open to the public.

PLACE: 1636 School of Social Work/International Institute, 1080 S. University Ave

SPONSORS: Center for European Studies, Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies