More Europe - For a New Culture in European Foreign Policy

"The European Union made human rights one of the central aspects in its relations to other countries and region," one could recently read on the European Commission's homepage. Such statements have often remained unfulfilled promises, whenever political and economic interests were involved.  Europe, wanting to see itself as the cradle of human and civil rights, has frequently failed to support democracy movements elsewhere. Human rights organisations have been criticizing the ineffectiveness of sanctions against dictatorships and an arbitrary asylum policy for political refugees from member states for a long time. What core values will the emerging European External Action Service feel obliged to in the future? What will the role of cultural cooperation with third countries be in the future?

Four days before the Avicenna Award ceremony for Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi in Frankfurt, she poses the following question in Berlin: "Does the EU possess a serious human rights policy strategy?"

The panel discussion on 2 May begins at 6 p.m. at Allianz Forum Berlin, Pariser Platz 6.

• Welcome: 
  Henning Schulte-Noelle, chairman of the board of Allianz SE
  Johannes Ebert, Secretary General of the Goethe Institute
• Keynote: 
  Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize laureate 2003, Avicenna Prize laureate 2012
• Panelists: 
  Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, member of the European Parliament and member in the Committee for Foreign Affairs of the EP
  Gottfried Langenstein, President of the French-German cultural broadcasting corporation ARTE und managing director of 3sat
  Robert Menasse, Austrian writer and EU expert
  Pierre Vimont, Secretary General of the European External Action Service
• Moderation: 
  Malte Lehming, Der Tagesspiegel.

An event by the Allianz Kulturstiftung and the initiative More Europe in cooperation with ARTE, Der Tagesspiegel, and rbb Kulturradio.

Michael Thoss

Allianz Kulturstiftung
Phone +49.89.4107-303