SETA CONFERNCE
By
Eduard Soler and Fadela Hilali
The CIDOB Foundation Mediterranean Programme
Date: January 22, 2009 Thursday
Time: 10.00 – 12.00
Venue: SETA Foundation, Ankara
Eduard Soler’s and Fadela Hilali’s talk will consist of two parts. The first part will discuss some EU reactions and dynamics that have stemmed from or stood out during the Gaza crisis. It will evoke some key initiatives, declaration and steps taken by some European actors to cope with the situation. The direct impact of the crisis along with some potential risks for the EU’s credibility in the face of the international community will also be mentioned.
As to Arab governments, he will evoke the division and discordance that have prevailed among the protagonists triggering the creation of two main camps or axes. There will be a specific emphasis on the effects the official decisions taken throughout the crisis have caused at the popular level, contemplating new social/political dynamics and risks that might ensue from it. Eduard Soler Coordinator of the Mediterranean and Middle East Programme of the CIDOB Foundation (Centre for International Information and Documentation in Barcelona), Doctor of International Relations and Graduate in Political Science, Autonomous University of Barcelona. He is a member of the Observatory of European Foreign Policy and participates in different transnational research projects and networks such as EuroMeSCo and INEX; his works have been published as monographic volumes and in magazines such as Mediterranean Politics, Insight Turkey and Europe’s world. He has also collaborated with different areas of the printed and audiovisual media. His main areas of work are: Euro-Mediterranean relations, the process of Turkey’s entry into the EU, Spain’s Mediterranean policy and the problems of security in the Mediterranean. Fadela Hilali Programme Assistant at CIDOB Foundation. She is graduate in Economics, College of Charleston (South Carolina, USA) and Masters in International Relations, Barcelona Institute of International Studies (IBEI). Her areas of interest include: political systems and security issues in the Arab world, human rights in the countries of the Maghreb region and US foreign policy toward the Middle East.