EU Enlargement in Challenging Times- Consider it All 2025!

29 April 2025

The Jean Monnet Chair ShapingEU, in partnership with UNC Chapel Hill, proudly hosted the 2025 edition of EU Enlargement in Challenging Times/ Consider it all, a unique transatlantic conference. The event took place in person at both UNC Chapel Hill and Humboldt University of Berlin, with a Zoom option for global participation.

The conference began with welcome remarks from Sarah Hutchison (Associate Director of TAM Program at UNC), followed by keynote talks by Dr. Claudia Matthes (Director of TAM at HU), who explored EU Enlargement in Challenging Times, and Sandi Chapman Osterkatz (TAM 2005 graduate), who shared her journey in “Smoke signals: How Following Your Gut and the People Who Support You Creates Opportunities in Academia and Beyond.”

Participants engaged in thought-provoking panels on:

• Policy Investigations: covering decarbonization policies, EU conditionality in Georgia, and migration securitization.
• Identities in Europe: exploring European self-identification through awards, literature, and historical revisionism.
• Conference Reflections: featuring Tracy Ridley discussing how CONSIDER IT ALL! shaped his career.

We’re deeply grateful to our students, alumni, and UNC Chapel Hill partners for their continued contributions, making this event a success. We look forward to future collaborations!

Following Up on the Conference on the Future of Europe and the EP Elections

18 June 2024

Exciting moments at the Jean Monnet Chair ShapingEU’s event! We hosted an enlightening conference on “Following up on the Conference on the Future of Europe and the EP Elections.” Our talented students from the “Analysing the Conference on the Future of Europe” course delivered outstanding presentations, with valuable insights from Dr. Andrej Demidov (Bertelsmann Foundation) & Oliver Krenz (Team Europa). They covered various themes of the Future of Europe Conference and ignited some fantastic discussions.

We also had an engaging Panel & FishBowl Discussion on the European Parliament Elections, featuring Jonas Roleder (Liaison Office of the EP, Berlin), Dr. Nicolai von Ondarza (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik), Oliver Krenz (Team Europe), & Emmeline Charenton (Junge Europäische Föderalist), moderated by Dr. Claudia Matthes.

A big thank you to Sebastian Rösner and the Deutsche Gesellschaft eV team for providing an excellent venue and facilitating great discussions! Looking forward to our future collaborations!

Opening Event of ShapingEU

13 October 2023

We are happy to announce our new project, a Jean Monnet Chair “ShapingEU”.

During the next three years Dr. Claudia Matthes will cover issues related to “Shaping the EU’s functionality and trust – internal reforms and policies for further enlargement” in her teaching and research.

On October 13, Our guest speaker Dr. Ronja Kempin (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, SWP) gave a talk on EU’s Foreign and Security Policy.

Including our guests from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, Prof. Bob Jenkins, our students from the German Turkish Masters Program, Euromasters and Transatlantic Masters had an intensive and informative exchange on recent developments with Dr. Kempin. This was a wonderful and enlightning occasion for opening the Jean Monnet Chair ShapingEU.