Discussion Highlights:

• Europe’s preparedness for a potential second Trump presidency.
• Challenges to EU strategic autonomy and transatlantic relations.
• The influence of defense contracts and energy dependencies on European policies.
• Internal EU struggles: technocracy versus democracy and stalled institutional reforms.
• Enlargement prospects in the Western Balkans and Eastern Europe as pathways to rejuvenate the EU’s global standing.
• Leadership and unity in the face of global instability.

About Stefan Lehne:
Stefan Lehne is a Senior Fellow at Carnegie Europe, focusing on EU institutions, reforms, and foreign policy. His career spans multiple senior positions, including director general for political affairs at the Austrian Ministry for European and International Affairs, and he has extensive experience in multilateral diplomacy. Lehne has served in Austria’s missions to the United Nations and the European Union and was involved in Austria’s EU accession negotiations.

Lehne’s recent research explores European integration, strategic autonomy, and responses to global challenges. He also lectures at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna and frequently contributes to policy discussions and publications. Lehne was a 2018/19 Europe's Futures Fellow of the IWM and ERSTE Foundation.

Recent Publications by Stefan Lehne:

• Charting the Radical Right’s Influence on EU Foreign Policy (April 2024, with Rosa Balfour) – Carnegie Europe
• The Rules-Based Order vs. the Defense of Democracy (September 2024) – Carnegie Europe
• Europe’s New Leadership Faces a Teamwork Test (June 2024) – Carnegie Europe
• Europe’s Radical Right Is Formidable—but Not Unstoppable (April 2024) – Carnegie Europe

find Stefan on X @StefanLehne

Ivan Vejvoda  is Head of the Europe's Futures program at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM Vienna) implemented in partnership with ERSTE Foundation. The program is dedicated to the cultivation of knowledge and the generation of ideas addressing pivotal challenges confronting Europe and the European Union: nexus of borders and migration, deterioration in rule of law and democracy and European Union’s enlargement prospects.

The Institute for Human Sciences is an institute of advanced studies in the humanities and social sciences. Founded as a place of encounter in 1982 by a young Polish philosopher, Krzysztof Michalski, and two German colleagues in neutral Austria, its initial mission was to create a meeting place for dissenting thinkers of Eastern Europe and prominent scholars from the West.

Since then it has promoted intellectual exchange across disciplines, between academia and society, and among regions that now embrace the Global South and North. The IWM is an independent and non-partisan institution, and proudly so. All of our fellows, visiting and permanent, pursue their own research in an environment designed to enrich their work and to render it more accessible within and beyond academia.

For further information about the Institute:

https://www.iwm.at/