European Challenges | Lectures


The Evens Lecture Series is an Evens Foundation initiative, established to strengthen its commitment as an active contributor to the quality of the public debate on pressing issues of our times. Renowned speakers from different backgrounds will be asked to reflect on core societal topics, starting from their own background and expertise.

Ann Pettifor

We need an alternative to globalisation - a new internationalism: for the many, not the few.

29 November 2021 | 19:00
BOZAR - Centre for Fine Arts Brussels

Registrations

The transfer of power over the economy to markets, and in particular financial markets, has deliberately weakened democracies and led to dangerous ecological and economic imbalances, and recurring financial crises. Global financial deregulations has wrenched power over the domestic economy away from democratic governments and transferred this power to markets that now manage public goods vital to the stability of society, the economy and the ecosystem. These include the creation of credit, the rate of interest on credit, investment, exchange rates and cross-border capital flows. The restoration of public authority over the system is vital, if democratic society is to manage the transition to a steady-state economy based on the ecosystem’s finite limits. In other words, to stabilise the ecosystem at national, global levels, society must first transform the international financial system. The speech will draw on the work of Keynes, on historical evidence and on recent European Union developments to suggest such a transformation is entirely possible.

With Tom Bauler (ULB) and Jens van 't Klooster(KU Leuven)
Moderated by Mehreen Khan (Financial Times)

Ann Pettifor was one of few to predict the Great Financial Crisis in The Coming First World Debt Crisis (Palgrave 2006). In 2008 she jointly co-authored the original The Green New Deal (New Economics Foundation). In 2017 she published The Production of Money (Verso) on the nature of money, debt and banking. In 2019 her book The Case for The Green New Deal (Verso) was published.

She is director of Policy Research in Macroeconomics (PRIME) – a network of mainly Keynesian economists. In 2018 Germany’s Heinrich Boll Foundation awarded Pettifor the Hannah Ahrendt Prize. She is a fellow of the New Economics Foundation, and a trustee of the PREP Foundation for pluralist economics.

In 2000 the University of Newcastle awarded her an honorary doctorate for leading an international movement for cancellation of $150bn of debt owed by 35 poor countries, Jubilee 2000. In 2004-5 Pettifor worked with Nigerian Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to clear debts of $30 billion owed to official creditors.

The Evens Lecture Series is an Evens Foundation initiative, established to strengthen its commitment as an active contributor to the quality of the public debate on pressing issues of our times. Renowned speakers from different backgrounds will be asked to reflect on core societal topics, starting from their own background and expertise.

Ann Pettifor

We need an alternative to globalisation - a new internationalism: for the many, not the few.

29 November 2021 | 19:00
BOZAR - Centre for Fine Arts Brussels

Registrations

The transfer of power over the economy to markets, and in particular financial markets, has deliberately weakened democracies and led to dangerous ecological and economic imbalances, and recurring financial crises. Global financial deregulations has wrenched power over the domestic economy away from democratic governments and transferred this power to markets that now manage public goods vital to the stability of society, the economy and the ecosystem. These include the creation of credit, the rate of interest on credit, investment, exchange rates and cross-border capital flows. The restoration of public authority over the system is vital, if democratic society is to manage the transition to a steady-state economy based on the ecosystem’s finite limits. In other words, to stabilise the ecosystem at national, global levels, society must first transform the international financial system. The speech will draw on the work of Keynes, on historical evidence and on recent European Union developments to suggest such a transformation is entirely possible.

With Tom Bauler (ULB) and Jens van 't Klooster(KU Leuven)
Moderated by Mehreen Khan (Financial Times)

Ann Pettifor was one of few to predict the Great Financial Crisis in The Coming First World Debt Crisis (Palgrave 2006). In 2008 she jointly co-authored the original The Green New Deal (New Economics Foundation). In 2017 she published The Production of Money (Verso) on the nature of money, debt and banking. In 2019 her book The Case for The Green New Deal (Verso) was published.

She is director of Policy Research in Macroeconomics (PRIME) – a network of mainly Keynesian economists. In 2018 Germany’s Heinrich Boll Foundation awarded Pettifor the Hannah Ahrendt Prize. She is a fellow of the New Economics Foundation, and a trustee of the PREP Foundation for pluralist economics.

In 2000 the University of Newcastle awarded her an honorary doctorate for leading an international movement for cancellation of $150bn of debt owed by 35 poor countries, Jubilee 2000. In 2004-5 Pettifor worked with Nigerian Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to clear debts of $30 billion owed to official creditors.


Lecture | 3 December 2018

The Age of Imitation and Its Discontents
Ivan Krastev

The end of the Cold War gave birth to the age of imitation. This imitation had different names - globalization, democratization, integration, but the meaning was clear. Imitating the West, its values, institutions and practices was the imperative. Looking back at the three post-Cold War decades and reflecting on the current crisis of liberal democracy, Ivan Krastev tries to suggest: why does imitation fuel resentment and hostility? Why do many imitators of foreign institutions feel like impostors? And why not only imitators but the imitated turned against the post-1989 liberal order?

Full lecture available here.

Keynote Speaker
Ivan Krastev, Chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies and Permanent Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences.
He is a founding board member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the Board of Trustees of The International Crisis Group and is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. Krastev was appointed as the Henry A. Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the John W. Kluge Center, Library of Congress (2018-2019). His latest books in English are After Europe (2017), Democracy Disrupted (2014), The Global Politics on Protest (2014). He is a co-author with Stephen Holmes of a forthcoming book The Light that Failed (2019) on perils of the politics of imitation.

Respondents
Heather Grabbe, Director of the Open Society European Policy Institute
Jorg Kustermans, Assistant Professor in International Relations at the University of Antwerp

Lecture | 24 September 2018

Academic Freedom and Democracy in Europe
Michael Ignatieff

Michael Ignatieff’s lecture analyses the role that universities play in the current cultural and institutional environment subject to shifting approaches to democracy. In this context the importance of securing academic freedom as a cornerstone of a free society seem pivotal as well as the necessity to grant educational institutions their function of corps intermédiaires. Academic freedom seems to be under attack from the state authorities in many parts of the world but also from within the academia itself. Debates have erupted about whether liberal academic freedom have turned into a form of coercive political correctness. Populist currents of political opinion are questioning the price the society pays for the freedom of its experts whilst academics strive to protect institutional and intellectual autonomy.

Full lecture available here

Keynote Speaker
Michael Ignatieff, Rector and President of the Central European University.
An international commentator on contemporary issues of democracy, human rights, and governance, Ignatieff is also an award-winning writer, teacher, former politician, and historian with a deep knowledge of Central and Eastern Europe. His major publications are The Needs of Strangers (1984), Scar Tissue (1992), Isaiah Berlin (1998), The Rights Revolution (2000), Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry (2001), The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror (2004), Fire and Ashes: Success and Failure in Politics (2013), and The Ordinary Virtues: Moral Order in a Divided World (2017).

Respondents
Natalie Nougayrède, Columnist at The Guardian, Editor of Europe Now series and This is Europe newsletter
Philippe Van Parijs, Guest Professor at KU Leuven and UCLouvain, Robert Schuman Fellow, European University Institute