A Tale of Two Cities and More
by Katy Crossley-Frolick
Many of us in academe are occasionally faced with requests from our colleagues to teach courses that lie somewhere outside our comfort zones. This was my situation in the spring of 2006, when my former department chair asked that I teach a course on the European Union for a colleague on leave. With a hint of trepidation I agreed, figuring it was more “my kind of course” than the other option, a course on NATO, a topic well beyond my usual orbit. Then, a few months later, I saw the call for applications for the 2007 Fulbright German Studies Seminar focusing on the European Union, Germany, and transatlantic relations. I applied assuming that the EU would become a permanent course in my stable of offerings.
- Seminar participants visited the Council of the European Union among many other European institutions in Brussels.
To my delight, I was invited to join the seminar which was rigorous, focused, and extremely enjoyable. Coinciding with the remaining days of Germany’s tenure as President of the Council of the European Union, we began our seminar in Brussels where we spent several days reviewing the intricate (“intricate” is perhaps an understatement in this case) workings of EU structures, considering the implications of EU enlargement, contemplating the fate of the EU constitution, and placing Germany’s priorities vis-ŕ-vis the EU in the broader context of its foreign policy goals. From there we headed to a very hot and muggy Berlin for a series of meetings that used the prism of the EU to examine various German policy areas, for example, economic and labor policies, education, immigration, and counterterrorism.
- Katy in a discussion with Harald Leibrecht (left), Member of the Deutsche Bundestag
After nearly two weeks, I left with a series of impressions that I can now convey with higher levels of confidence to my students. First, German Eurocrats in Brussels and policy makers in Berlin continue to place a high premium on the advantages that accrue from the EU, both domestically and internationally, in spite of difficult times in the past and those surely to come in the future.
Second, and perhaps to no one’s surprise in our seminar, transatlantic relations remain strained. I sensed a deep and genuine desire on the part of policy makers, particularly parliamentarians from across the political spectrum in the German Bundestag, for a renewed dialogue between Germany and the US to find areas of agreement, rather than dwell indefinitely on disagreements.
Finally, Europe is still digesting the spectacular changes that accompanied the end of the Cold-War. To continue with the metaphor, the political hiccups and indigestion that accompanied the demise of the Soviet Union influence policymaking both at the state level and at the broader European level. The geographical boundaries of Europe are open to debate and the meaning of “Europe” and “Europeanness” is by no means a settled question. Indeed, the seminar concluded with a series of questions that my co-participants and I pondered: What will the EU look like a decade from now? Will the “constitution” - or whatever the final document formerly known as the “constitution” was called - be the glue that binds Europe? What, short of a crisis, will it take to keep the European project on track?
Professor Katy Crossley-Frolick was a participant of the German Studies Seminar 2007 “Germany in a Changing Europe: Transatlantic Ties, Transatlantic Challenges.” She teaches Political Science at Denison University.