30 years of the Conference of European Ministers - Options for action and visions for the futurePresentation of the publication „30 Jahre Europaministerkonferenz" in Berlin

14 February 2023

Photo: Sächsische Staatskanzlei, Michael Deutsch

To mark the 30th anniversary of the European Ministers' Conference (EMK), the Hamburg-Vigoni Forum, in cooperation with the Jean Monnet Chair at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, has published the study "30 Years of the European Ministers' Conference - Options for Action and Visions for the Future". The policy paper analyses the workings and achievements of the EMK over the last three decades.

The results of the paper were presented on 8 February 2023 at an evening event at the Saxony-Anhalt State Representation in Berlin. A keynote speech by Prof. Dr Christian Calliess, holder of the Jean Monnet Chair of European Citizenship at the Free University of Berlin, on the legal basis for cooperation between the federal government and the federal states on European issues and ways of shaping active subsidiarity served as an introduction to the discussion. He also addressed the key questions of the policy paper: what role the European Commission plays, how it fulfills this role, and to what extent the requirements profile has changed over the decades. Against this background, scientific recommendations were then reflected on from the perspective of political practice.

The panel discussion was attended by Simone Großner, State Secretary for Federal and European Affairs and Plenipotentiary of the State of Saxony-Anhalt to the Federal Government; Almut Möller, State Councillor and Plenipotentiary of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg to the Federal Government, the European Union and for Foreign Affairs and Dr Anna Lührmann, Minister of State for Europe and Climate at the Federal Foreign Office. The discussion was moderated by Prof. Dr Eva Heidbreder, Professor of Governance in the European Multi-level Governance System at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, and Prof. Dr Markus Kotzur, Project Manager of the Hamburg-Vigoni Forum and Professor of European and International Law at the University of Hamburg.

The event was attended by a total of 60 participants with an interest in European policy from academia and research, as well as employees from state and federal ministries.