Podcasts / Vienna Coffee House Conversations with Ivan Vejvoda

Vienna Coffee House Conversations with Ivan Vejvoda

“Europe is made up of coffee houses or cafes… Draw the coffee-house map and you have one of the essential markers of the ‘idea of Europe’.”

George Steiner

Vienna Coffee House Conversations podcast series are brought about by Ivan Vejvoda, IWM’s Permanent Fellow and director of Europe’s Futures – Ideas for Action project.

As Europe finds itself confronted with challenges of a magnitude it has not experienced since the crises of the 1930s, it is of the essence to create a space to understand the current dynamics and to bring people from the different corners of Europe to speak and listen to each other on many challenges: rule of law, democratic deterioration, depopulation and migration, unity and solidarity, the wake of Brexit, the enlargement prospects in the Western Balkans.

Expanding that space, Europe’s Futures Fellows and other prominent European experts join Ivan Vejvoda in 30-min episodes with succinct discussion on issues with lines sometimes blurred but importance always clear for the success of the European project.

EU Enlargement with Srdjan Cvijic

Speakers: Ivan Vejvoda Srdjan Cvijic

In our second Vienna Coffee House Conversation, Ivan Vejvoda speaks with Srdjan Cvijic. Senior Policy Analyst at the Open Society European Policy Institute and Europe’s Futures Fellow, Cvijic is a leading advocate on multiple foreign policy portfolios, particularly on the work of keeping the promise of European Union enlargement. In this discussion, Vejvoda and Cvijic dive into the multi-faceted dimensions of this ever-present European issue and consider the apparent fading of the EU’s fervour for greater expansion and the dulling of the EU flag’s lustre in the ambitions of candidate countries. There has always been a conflict between the desire for a deeper Europe and the desire for a wider one – the thorny question of enlargement is where the Union’s frontiers meet the dilemmas at its heart.

Srdjan Cvijic is on twitter @srdjancvijic. He is frequently sought out by the media and has published extensively, in both academic and policy format, on EU foreign relations and the politics of the Balkans Previously Dr. Cvijic was a senior diplomat posted in the missions of the Republic of Serbia in Belgium and the Netherlands. Dr. Cvijic also worked as the advisor for the Special Coordinator of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, European Policy Centre and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. (Find more of his work at Euractiv and Poiltico.)

Ivan Vejvoda is Head of the IWM’s Europe’s Futures program at IWM where, in cooperation with leading European organisations and think tanks IWM and ERSTE Foundation have joined forces to tackle some of the most crucial topics: nexus of borders and migration, deterioration in rule of law and democracy and European Union’s enlargement prospects.

Russian Influence & Frozen Conflicts with Dimitar Bechev - The Case of Nagorno-Karabakh

Speakers: Ivan Vejvoda Dimitar Bechev

In the first of our series of coffee house conversations, Ivan Vejvoda speaks to Dimitar Bechev - IWM and Atlantic Council fellow, visiting researcher at Oxford and King's college and author of 2017's 'Rival Power: Russia's Influence in Southeast Europe' described in The Economist as 'The right author of the right book at the right time'.

In an in-depth conversation, Vejvoda and Bechev discuss the 30 year Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the nature of frozen conflicts, the geopolitics of energy and influence; and the prospects for positive change in the future.

Dimitar Bechev is on twitter @DimitarBechev and his most recent book is, Rival Power - Russia in Southeast Europe published by Yale University Press. He is Adjunct Professor if European Studies and International Relations at the University of Sofia and a 2020/21 Europe’s Futures Fellow at the IWM.

Ivan Vejvoda is Head of the Europe's Futures program at IWM where, in cooperation with leading European organisations and think tanks IWM and ERSTE Foundation have joined forces to tackle some of the most crucial topics: nexus of borders and migration, deterioration in rule of law and democracy and European Union’s enlargement prospects.