Is there life after the Eurocrisis? That’s what a former Vice-President of the European Commission will be asking at a conference next week to mark the 20^th anniversary of the Sussex European Institute (SEI).

Lord (Leon) Brittan, who held various high-level roles with the European Commission during the 1990s, will be on campus on Thursday (27 September) to give the opening address at the two-day conference on the future of Europe.

Other conference speakers include the Polish Minister for Europe, SEI alumnus Piotr Serafin, as well as all three former Directors of the SEI: Professor Jörg Monar, Professor Jim Rollo and Dame Helen Wallace.

Professor Aleks Szczerbiak, current SEI Co-Director, says: “The conference takes place at a time when the European integration project faces the greatest challenge in its history: a potentially existential Euro zone crisis.

“The crisis places huge questions marks over the future shape - and, indeed, very survival in its present form - of the European Union.

“At the same time, many commentators see the solution to this crisis as deeper political and economic integration; at least for those EU members who are part of - or wish, at some stage, to join – the Euro zone.”

The aim of the anniversary conference reflects the SEI’s 20-year mission: to subject the challenges facing Europe to thorough, scholarly analysis and to set out options for future ways forward (while analysing the risks and opportunities involved).

Four more focused workshops will follow, building and expanding on the themes discussed at the conference.

Running from November 2012 through to June 2013, they will cover:

• challenging financial times in Europe;
• social citizenship and migration in Europe;
• EU foreign policy and the EU’s diplomatic service;
• and Euroscepticism in the UK and reconnecting the UK public with the EU.

Professor Sue Millns, SEI Co-Director, says: “We hope that the next 20 years, and indeed the future of both the SEI and EU, continue in a spirit of progress in what is an age of changes, challenges and chances.”