European integration began as an inward looking project under the protection of the United States (US). It gradually turned outwards and, in so doing, Europeans began to realize that strength lies in unity. We now live in a world of growing strategic rivalry and large asymmetries among state and private actors. It is a world in which high politics takes over from economics, regional integration parts ways from globalization and the US may be a less reliable security provider and benign leader of the alliance. Europe needs to become a political adult to be able to defend common interests and values.
The lecturer Loukas Tsoukalis was born in Athens. He studied economics and international relations at the University of Manchester, the College of Europe in Bruges, and the University of Oxford where he obtained his doctoral degree and taught for many years. He later became Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration at the University of Athens and Eleftherios Venizelos Professor at the European Institute of the London School of Economics. He was Visiting Professor at the Kennedy School, Harvard University, the European University Institute in Florence, and for many years director of the economics department and Visiting Professor at the College of Europe. He has advised former presidents of the European Commission and the European Council. He is now Affiliate Professor at the Paris School of International Affairs, Sciences Po, and Emeritus Professor of the University of Athens. He is also President of the Board of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), Greece’s leading think tank.
His many books include The New European Economy; What Kind of Europe?; In Defence of Europe: Can the European Project Be Saved? which were translated into several languages. He was editor of the Journal of Common Market Studies. In 2021, OUP published a Festschrift Europe’s Transformations: Essays in Honour of Loukas Tsoukalis with contributions from leading thinkers and policy makers.
His new book Europe’s Coming of Age was published by Polity Press in October 2022.
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