Vienna – Towards a humane and effective asylum policy

Mark Leonard – Kristof Bender – Nina Khrushcheva. Photo: Kreisky Forum

On 7 March Kristof participated in a round table on "Ways to next Europe?", part of a series of events on the topic of "Next Europe" organised by the Centre for Liberal Strategies from Sofia, the Bruno Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue in Vienna, the European Council on Foreign Relations, the Balkan Trust for Democracy and the Directorate for Security Policy of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Defence and Sports.

Kristof spoke on a panel with Soli Özel of Kadir Has University (Istanbul) and Nina Khrushcheva of the World Policy Institute on how to react to external crisis and conflict. He explored the shortcomings of the current response to the refugee crisis and presented ideas how to address them. For an upcoming paper on this topic please check here. 

Other participants included Walter Russel Mead (Hudson Institute, Editor-at-Large of The American Interest, Washington DC), Ivan Krastev (Centre for Liberal Strategies, Sofia), Mark Leonard (ECFR, London), Stefan Lehne (Carnegie Europe, Brussels), Nilan Nic (Globsec Policy Institute, Bratislava), Roderick Parkes (EUISS, Paris), Bastian Giegerich (IISS, London), Vessela Tcherneva (ECFR, Sofia), Bernardo Venturi (IAI, Rome) and Wolfgang Wosolsobe (Austrian Ministry for Defence and Sports, Vienna).

On 8 March Kristof was invited to a lunch at the Dutch residence in Vienna to discuss ESI's ideas for a reformed European asylum policy. Attending were Robert-Jan Sieben, head of the Dutch Foreign Ministry's Migration Task Force, Jan Willem de Wolf, the Dutch defence attaché to Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia, Sascha Bollerman of the Dutch and Valentine Mangez of the Belgium Embassy to Austria.

Programme: "Ways to next Europe?"