The EU at 50 to Be Ginsberg's Moseley Lecture Focus

The 50th anniversary of the European Union will form the basis of this year’s Edwin M. Moseley Faculty Research Lecture at Skidmore. Professor of Government Roy H. Ginsberg, a leading EU scholar, will deliver the lecture at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 21, in Gannett Auditorium of Palamountain Hall. Admission is free and open to the public.

Using the March 2007 50th anniversary of the EU as a starting point, Ginsberg will reflect on the achievements and shortfalls of the EU and its 27 member states, and consider the direction of the EU over the next 50 years. His talk, titled “Exorcising the Ghosts of Europe’s Past? Fifty Years of European Integration,” will address two key questions: Have the Europeans finally overcome the shadow of wars past through the mechanisms of interstate reconciliation and regional integration? Will the EU endure?

Each year the Skidmore faculty chooses one of its own to deliver the Edwin M. Moseley Faculty Research Lecture. Selection as the Moseley Lecturer is the highest honor the Skidmore faculty can confer upon a colleague.

“Despite the fact that the European Union—the world’s greatest experiment in interstate reconciliation through regional integration—is now 50 years old, it remains a mystery to many in and outside Europe,” says Ginsberg.

It is this “mystery” that Ginsberg addresses in his new book, Demystifying the European Union: The Enduring Logic of Regional Integration (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers). To be released this month, the book begins with the foundation blocks of history, law, economics, and politics. Ginsberg then describes the EU as a “polity” before evaluating the effects of EU policies on Europeans and non-Europeans alike.

In his book Ginsberg concludes that in its first 50 years the EU focused on postwar reconciliation between Germany and her neighbors and on establishing a single internal market and currency. He predicts that the next 50 years will see the EU focus on developing common foreign and security policies. Its priorities will be to counter transnational terrorism and crime, to stem the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and to reduce overdependence on imported gas and oil. The EU will also seek public support for ratification of its new constitution.

A member of the Skidmore faculty since 1986, Ginsberg is a sought-after speaker in both Europe and the United States and a consultant to U.S. government agencies on European Union affairs. He has submitted testimony to Congress on United States foreign policy and co-founded and chaired the European Union Studies Association of the United States. In March 2007, at the invitation of the U.S. Department of State, Ginsberg will lecture in Central and Eastern Europe.

He is author or coauthor of the following books: Foreign Policy Actions of the European Community: The Politics of Scale; European Union-United States Relations in the 1990s: The Elements of Partnership; The United States and the European Union in the 1990s: Partners in Transition; and The European Union in International Politics: Baptism by Fire.

Ginsberg has been the Glaverbel Chair in European Politics at Catholic University of Louvain; visiting professor at the Center for European Studies at New York University and the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies; visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Fulbright research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies; and research fellow at the European Commission. Ginsberg received a Ph.D. in political science from The George Washington University.