Past events

Recent shocks of the Covid-19 pandemic and of Russia’s war against Ukraine have added a massive economic component to European geopolitics. Security policy and economics have become intertwined challenges and raise urgent questions for Europe: How to improve economic resilience, avoid dangerous dependencies, and safeguard competitiveness? Do we need to rethink our trade partnerships and EU’s relationships with China and the US? Should we ban foreign investments in domestic (digital) infrastructure? Should Europe act more strategically and integrate economic and security policy, and if so, how?

Geopolitics used to be a two-dimensional cartographic affair. Now, climate change and sustainability concerns have turned it into a volumetric one – and added a massive economic component to it. What happens above and below ground, not just across borders, will have a major impact on the European economies for decades to come. So… Welcome to Geoeconomics.

In its agreement with film and television companies, the Writers Guild of America included not only pay increases, but also protections around artificial intelligence. Screenwriters are not the only ones fretting about their jobs as AI takes the world by storm: the stormy sounds are keeping many other types of workers, and policymakers foremost, awake at night. And AI is just one of the disruptive technologies being deployed.

Despite ambitious pledges made in Paris in 2015, with the EU at the forefront, the world is not on track to stop climate change within safe limits. What can Europe do to make the green transition happen? Shared Perspectives 2023 brings together policy-oriented economists and policymakers to seek politically feasible, economically sensible, environmentally effective answers.

Climate crisis, Covid-19 pandemic, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: recent crises are creating new geoeconomic challenges. What do these mean for future relations between Europe and Africa? What new opportunities will arise?

Bill Gates, Co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Jutta Urpilainen, European Commissioner for International Partnerships, and Clemens Fuest, President of the ifo Institute, were debating in a panel discussion on the subject “A Geoeconomic Watershed Moment – What is Needed for New Partnerships between Europe and Africa?” and discuss these questions and others.