EIN Summer University in Rome to discuss EU security and stability in the Mediterranean

The 16th annual gathering of the European Ideas Network (EIN) will take place in Rome, Italy, from 27 to 29 September, with European politicians, businessmen, academics, policy-makers and opinion-shapers debating solutions for ensuring security and stability in the Mediterranean region.

"We could not have found a better place to organise our 16th European Ideas Network Summer University than in Rome. The choice of location is our contribution to celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. For two days a broad range of high-level panels will discuss topics from security and defence to migration, the economy, demography, bioethics, external relations, etc. The EU is living through a historical moment and this reflection process in Rome will give EPP Group MEPs enough food for thought to prepare the future," stated Paulo Rangel MEP, Chair of the European Ideas Network and Vice-Chair of the EPP Group in the European Parliament.

On Thursday 28 September, Elisabetta Gardini MEP, Head of the Forza Italia Delegation ih the EPP Group, and Lorenzo Cesa MEP, Head of the UDC-AP-SVP Delegation in the EPP Group, will open the session on ‘Common Security and Stability in the Mediterranean Region’. After that, Paulo Rangel MEP will chair a roundtable on the key issue of the future of Europe. Other debates will include themes such as migration and demography, digitalisation, technological innovation and entrepreneurship, terrorism, economic and financial development in the EU and an EU-Russia dialogue on energy.

Later that day, the President of the European People’s Party, Joseph Daul, will be awarded the third EIN Francisco Lucas Pires Merit Award, in a ceremony hosted by the EIN in the presence of Mairead McGuiness MEP, Vice-President of the European Parliament, and Paulo Rangel MEP. This award serves as recognition of a figure who, throughout his career, excelled in disseminating European values.

The programme for the second day will cover topics such as the future of transatlantic relations, youth empowerment and EU security and defence.

Participants in the EIN's Summer University will include well-known public figures such as Antonis Samaras, Lawrence Gonzi and Enda Kenny, the former Prime Ministers of Greece, Malta and Ireland respectively, as well as Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Angelino Alfano, former Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and former Judge of the European Court of Justice, Enzo Moavero Milanesi, Tonio Borg, former European Commissioner and Malta's former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Andris Piebalgs, former European Commissioner and President of Latvia's Unity Party.

The European Ideas Network is an open pan-European think-tank designed to promote new thinking on the key challenges facing the countries of the European Union. Sponsored by the EPP Group, the largest political group in the European Parliament, the network was launched in the summer of 2002 and has rapidly emerged as an important intellectual crossroads for the centre-right in European politics.