INVITATION Danube Conference, November 11, 2020

 

 

IDM DUK Danube Conference 111120.pdf 

 

The General Secretariat of the Working Community of the Danube Regions is pleased to send you attached the following invitation to the Danube Conference Post-Corona in the Danube Region Utopia or Dystopia - The Common European Future. 

 

Online Conference

The global Coronavirus pandemic put the world into a previously not imaginable vulnerable situation and might have given a first impression of further global crises to come. After its outbreak in China in 2019, the rapid spread of Covid-19 forced the World Health Organization (WHO) to state the global health emergency in January 2020, and to declare the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020.

As a result, in Europe, 25 years after the implementation of the Schengen zone, national borders were closed, public institutions as well as the private economy shut down, and people urged to stay at home. In the Danube region the Corona crisis has not only revealed insufficiencies in national social, economic and health care systems, but also intensified deep asymmetries among EU and non-EU member states. Moreover, the call for a common approach to crisis management contradicted national interests, in particular the minilateralism of the Visegrád countries, while the EU integration of the Western Balkans again appeared to take a back seat, concretely the start of EU membership negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania.

The conference therefore aims to reflect on utopian visions of a common European future on the one hand and dystopian ones on the other. While the first, positively connoted scenario draws sustainable reforms in economic and social life, together with a new climate-oriented consciousness; the other, negatively connoted scenario criticises problematic long-lasting effects on human and civil rights, socio-economy and ecology, and finally on liberal democracy. The main question is which lessons learnt and recommendations can be taken out of the Corona crisis to develop realistic future prospects and strategies to improve the situation in the Danube region as part of a common Europe.

 

Date: November 11, 2020 - 10:00 a.m.

 

Online event: IDM Vienna YouTube Channel

 

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyC2aX1mJv4&feature=youtu.be

 

Language: English

 

Contact

Dr. Silvia Nadjivan

Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe (IDM)

Hahngasse 6/1/24

Phone: +43 1 319 72 58-24

E-Mail: s.nadjivan@idm.at