Great Decisions Lecture Series: Brexit and the European Union

Описание: With the "Brexit transition period" coming to an end this year, the United Kingdom will formally leave the European Union at the start of 2021. With negotiations between the two entities continuing to stall, what does the future of Europe and the UK look like? Will the UK survive a possible Scottish vote to leave? Who will step up and take command of Europe now that Angela Merkel is out of the spotlight?


About the Speaker

Daniel S. Hamilton is the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation Distinguished Fellow and Director of the Global Europe Program at the Wilson Center. He is a widely-recognized expert on U.S. foreign policy and on European, Eurasian and transatlantic security, economic and political affairs. He is quoted frequently in major U.S., European and global media and has testified on numerous occasions before committees of the U.S. Congress and European parliaments.

He is also Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins SAIS, where he co-leads the School's postdoctoral program on "The United States, Europe, and World Order." He was the Founding Director of the SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations, and for fifteen years served concurrently as Executive Director of the American Consortium for European Union Studies. He has also taught at the Free University of Berlin, the University of Innsbruck, and the Hertie School of Governance.

Dr. Hamilton is President of the Transatlantic Leadership Network and Richard von Weizs?cker Fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin.

He has held a variety of senior positions in the U.S. Department of State, including Deputy Assistant Secretary for European Affairs, responsible for NATO, OSCE and transatlantic security issues, Nordic-Baltic and Balkan Affairs; U.S. Special Coordinator for Southeast European Stabilization; Associate Director of the Policy Planning Staff for two U.S. Secretaries of State; Director for Policy in the Bureau of European Affairs; and Senior Policy Advisor to the U.S. Ambassador and U.S. Embassy in Germany.

In 2008 he served as the first Robert Bosch Foundation Senior Diplomatic Fellow in the German Foreign Office, where he worked in the Planning Staff for Foreign Minister (and now President) Frank-Walter Steinmeier. In 2012 he was a member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's ‘Futures Advisory Group'.

Dr. Hamilton is currently an advisory board member for a score of European and transatlantic institutions and publications. He has served as a consultant to Microsoft, the U.S. Business Roundtable, the Transatlantic Business Dialogue, the National Geographic Society, and RAND. He served as host of The Washington Post/Newsweek International's online discussion feature Next Europe.

He has been presented with Germany's Cross of the Federal Order of Merit (Bundesverdienstkreuz); France's Knighthood of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques; and Sweden's Knighthood of the Royal Order of the Polar Star. The American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union awarded Dr. Hamilton its highest honor, the Transatlantic Business Award. He holds the State Department's Superior Honor Award.

He has a Ph.D. and M.A. with distinction from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and an honorary doctorate from Concordia College. He received his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.


About the Moderator

Stephen Steigman is director of 91.9 Classical KC and chief of broadcast operations for KCUR 89.3. Previously he served as the founding producer of the award-winning public-affairs program, Up to Date with Steve Kraske. Before entering public radio, Stephen worked for a number of arts organizations across the country. Stephen holds a BA in arts administration from Skidmore College and an MPA degree from the Bloch School of Management at UMKC. When he's not working, Stephen enjoys traveling to destinations near and far with his wife and University of Kansas professor Tamara Falicov and their three children.


Sustaining Series Sponsor

Cyprienne Simchowitz


Supporting Series Sponsor

Nancy Messer


Great Decisions

Great Decisions is America's largest discussion program on world affairs. The program involves reading the Great Decisions Briefing Book and meeting in a discussion group to discuss the most critical international issues facing the United States, and the global community, today. From libraries, homes, retirement communities, universities, high schools, and more – and now on Zoom – meeting locations are endless