On the afternoon of February 26th, Prof. Ludger Kuhnhardt, dean of the Center for European Integration Studies of the Bonn University visited the SIES and made exchanged ideas and opinions on the topic of “a European Union facing the Whole World: the Current Crises and the Future of Integration”, with XU Mingqi, WU Yikang, DING Chun, ZHENG Chunrong, YE Jiang, DAI Qixiu, QIAN Yunchun, XIN Hua, CAO Ziheng, YE Yuming, and YANG Haifeng. Prof. Kuhnhardt analyzed the multiple crises that the European Union is encountering currently (such as economic challenges and transitions, governance issues, refugee crisis, Schengen system, state building and the soft power of the European Union) from rather broad perspectives of history and time, and explored the mutual interconnectedness of all these issues. He argued that the problems of the European Union is a strategic dilemma, which shall be regarded as “the most serious crisis” ever since the WWII or even the WWI. He thought that the problems are not exogenous but endogenous to the European integration, not deriving from the integration process but contained inside the integration itself. Kuhnhardt was the first scholar that came up with the famous opinion that “crisis is the driving force of the European integration”. At that time, he was confident towards the future of the European integration. But now Prof. Kuhnhardt seems to be very worried about its future. This might deserve more contemplations from Chinese scholars of European studies.
