Europe Dialogues
Friday November 25, Oddi 201, from 12-13 pm.

Tomas Baum, Director of the Flemish Peace Institute in Belgium will hold a lecture on the Arms trade from a European Perspective: Challenging the normative power. 

 
At the root of the EU’s activities in controlling arms trade lie its foreign policy ambitions. Ambitions that are often summarized under the umbrella term ‘normative power’. The self image of the EU does not allow it to contribute to conflict by means of the delivery of arms to parties in conflict. The principle of sovereignty implies, however, that European foreign policy is to a large extent member state driven. This means that the development of a harmonized European policy in arms trade poses many challenges for an EU living up to its normative ambitions. Recent developments in the European defense market, mainly based on economic considerations, have increased the stakes for efficient arms control regulation. I argue that the challenges in this area are manifold: de-securitization, coherence in EU policy and the integrity of the idea of the EU as a normative power.
 
Tomas Baum studied philosophy, applied ethics and international politics. As director and research coordinator of the Flemish Peace Institute he translates the work from the 'Arms trade and arms production program and the ‘Peace and society' program of the Flemish Peace Institute to various levels of policymaking, media and other fora. He also engages as a facilitator in conflict transformation processes based on insights from participatory community building and theories of conflict resolution.

Alyson Bailes will chair the event and it is open to all