Based on the results of the Atlantic Future project, this seminar aims at strengthening the transatlantic dialogue and develop new cooperative regimes in those strategic areas in which the Atlantic region can make a difference.
The Atlantic Hemisphere is a space with a common history of more than 500 years of multiple interactions and exchanges between the different regions along the Ocean. These connections are being reshaped due to the drastic changes taking place as a result of globalisation, growing interdependences and the diffusion of power among heterogeneous actors. Therefore, there is an urgent need for new governance structures and practices that can provide and defend common goods in an efficient manner.
The new EU Global Strategy presented last summer stresses the commitment to support cooperative regimes worldwide including both, the North and the South of the Atlantic, based on particular shared goals. In this context, the Atlantic offers opportunities to enhancing and fostering a regional cooperative framework that could represent an example to other regions. Transnational security risks, stagnant conflicts, the refugee’s crisis, the Atlantic energy renaissance and the future elections in the United States and some European States open a window of opportunity to reaffirm the importance of the wider transatlantic relations. Moreover, the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations and the Climate Change Agreement reached in the Paris Summit last year, set a new framework for collaboration in the region. The current social and political environment in the Atlantic Space brings new risk but also opportunities to promote cooperative approaches built upon shared interests.
Based on the results of the Atlantic Future project - a project funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme-, this seminar aims at strengthening the transatlantic dialogue and develop new cooperative regimes in those strategic areas in which the Atlantic region can make a difference. That is a new paradigm that responds to the transnational security risks, economic challenges and environmental hazards while respecting and promoting the fundamental rights and freedoms of a rule-based international order.
Josep Joan Moreso, President, CIDOB
Raül Romeva, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Institutional Relations and Transparency, Catalan Government
Speakers:
Jordi Bacaria, Director, CIDOB
Paul Isbell, CAF Energy Fellow, JHU
Renato Flores, Lecturer, School of Economics, FGV
Presentation of the Atlas of the Atlantic, the Atlantic Future monograph and the new Jean Monnet Network Atlantic initiative.
Moderator:
Laia Tarragona, Research Projects, University of Deusto
Speakers:
Alfredo Valladao, Professor Sciences Po & Researcher at CESEM, HEM
Kristina Kausch, Senior Resident Fellow, GM
Goals of the session:
- Identify security risks and challenges
- Evaluate current trans-regional responses (actors, alliances, partnerships and organizations)
- Analyse possible paths for convergence and better cooperation
Moderator:
Jordi Bacaria, Director, CIDOB
Speakers:
Sangeeta Khorana, Professor of Economics, Bournemouth University
Germán Ríos, Corporate Director Strategic Affairs, CAF
Goals of the session:
- Identify trade patterns: trade creation, trade diversion and/or diversification
- Discuss trans-regional investment and value chains: closing or opening gaps and asymmetries?
- Examine the regional integration: inter-regional treaties, bilateral agreements and paths for competition or complementarity
Moderator:
Anna Ayuso, Senior Research Fellow, CIDOB
Speakers:
Víctor Borges, Former Foreign Minister of Cape Verde
Clàudia Jiménez, Professor of Public International Law, Autonomous University of Barcelona
Goals of the session:
- Analyse regional approaches to sustainable development goals as a shared agenda in the Atlantic
- Discuss the different perceptions on Human Rights and democracy in the Atlantic
- Evaluate the role of non-governmental actors, social networks, people flows and inter-regional cooperation. Building transatlantic communities?
Moderator:
Eckart Woertz, Senior Research Fellow, CIDOB
Speakers:
Alan Riley, The Institute for Statecraft
Andreas Kraemer, Founder and Director Emeritus, Ecologic Institute
Goals of the session:
- Assesses the effects of climate change in the regions of the Atlantic
- Identify shared and differentiated responsibilities to fight climate change
- Analyse the Climate Change Agenda
