As Europe enters the new millennium, both integrative and disintegrative processes will shape its future. On the one hand, the European Union (EU) will undoubtedly continue on its steady course of unprecedented social, political, and economic unification. On the other hand, unsettling disintegrative tendencies may well continue to trouble Europe, most notably in the Balkan region. Questions regarding the enlargement of the EU and NATO to the East and South, revised security frameworks in Europe, and the differing and conflicting perceptions of European cultural identity pose further challenges for Europe in the twenty-first century.

As part of a Salzburg Seminar series focusing on Europe, this session will examine the competing forces of integration and disintegration within Europe. Topics of discussion will include the political, economic, and security relations between the EU and its European neighbors to the South, North, and East; varieties of social models in Europe; potential sources of conflict on the European continent; and the implications for the global community of Europe’s paradoxical tensions.