Energy Politics: Empowerment or dependency

David Madden (SEESOX Associate; Senior Member, St Antony's College, Oxford)

The second seminar in the series Global South East Europe in a multi-polar world, “Energy Politics: Empowerment or dependency” took place on 28 January.

Konstantinos Filis (Institute of International Relations, Athens) spoke about trends in the European gas market, Russian-EU relations and Greece. The market was down by 15% compared with 2010. Demand was reduced by the economic downturn. The emphasis was on diversification (reducing dependence on Russia), conservation, energy saving, indigenous production, interconnectivity of networks and development of infrastructure. There were doubts about the dependability of Russian supply, particularly in the light of events in the Ukraine, but 17 EU member states still relied on Russia for over 80% of their imports. The Turkish Stream would not replace South Stream in terms of quantities, but would weaken Kiev’s transit role, and strengthen relations with Turkey. For gas coming into the EU, it might run into objections on the lines encountered by South Stream, but Russia would expect the EU to sort those out. In the short term SEE was unlikely to reduce dependence on Russia, but would have better access to alternative supplies by 2018/9. Greece needed new investment in infrastructure, but the picture was clouded by the new government and early decisions on privatisation. Generally, lower prices meant reduced interest in deep off-shore fields, including in Greece.

Romania’s new German President: Where do we go from here?

Jonathan Scheele (SEESOX Associate; Senior Member, St Antony's College, Oxford)

On 27 January, SEESOX organised, in cooperation with the Department of International Development, a lunchtime seminar on “Romania’s new German President: where do we go from here?” the panel of speakers was made up of Laurentiu-Mihai Stefan, from the Romanian President’s Office, Michael Taylor, of Oxford Analytica, John Beyer, of St Antony’s, Corneliu Bjola of ODID, and Jonathan Scheele, of St Antony’s.

In November 2014, Romania elected a new President in the second round, pitching the current Prime Minister, Victor Ponta, of the Social Democratic Party, against Klaus Iohannis, of the National Liberal Party, an ethnic German and Mayor of the Transylvanian city of Sibiu. The election results were heavily influenced by a massive turnout of the (mainly young) Romanian diaspora, queuing all day outside embassies across Europe to vote – and in many cases failing to get through the door before the polls closed. And, in their frustration, they used social media to encourage relatives and friends back home to vote against the current government. So what does the election of this – relatively – new figure in Romanian national politics, not a Romanian ethnic, though married to one, mean for the next five years – or ten if he is re-elected for a second term – in Romania?

Children of Marx, Coca Cola and the Greek colonels? Rethinking student resistance in the long 1960s

Eirini Karamouzi (The A. G. Leventis Fellow on Modern Greece, St Antony's College, Oxford)

On 22 January 2015, SEESOX hosted a seminar entitled ‘Children of Marx, Coca Cola and the Greek colonels? Rethinking student resistance in the long 1960s’ with speakers Kostis Kornetis (University of New York), Eirini Karamouzi (SEESOX) and chaired by Paul Betts (St Antony’s College). Kornetis presented the findings of his recently published book "Children of the Dictatorship: Student Resistance, Cultural Politics, and the 'Long 1960s' in Greece", which focuses on the political, social, and cultural history of youthful opposition to the Greek military dictatorship (1967-74). The culmination and the most spectacular of all resistance activities was the student occupation of the Athens Polytechnic in November 1973 - an occupation that lasted three days and came to a bloody conclusion as it was crushed by the regime’s tanks; at least twenty-four people were certified dead and another fifteen went “missing”. If the most emblematic moment in Western European recent protest culture remains 1968, the absolute vertex for later developments in Greece’s political activism were therefore the Polytechnic events of 1973 – paradoxically becoming later on a national “lieu de memoire”. The hegemonic role that this emblematic movement played and continues to play in Greece, renders its close study of paramount importance to understand both the events themselves and their afterlives. The book is innovative and original in the simple fact that is as not as much about the politics of protest, as about the cultural memory thereof, thus promoting a dialogue between private microhistory and public events. By exploring the subjective element in student discourse and action, it looks at the ways in which these identities have changed over time and how individuals look back at their past militancy almost forty years later. Kornetis explicitly underlined during his talk that the aim was not to look only at the facts, but to explore the psychological and symbolic dimension, the unconscious, the imaginary and the projections, the memory distortions and the memory losses of the actors in question.

Beyond Europeanisation: European hegemony versus global influences

Othon Anastasakis (Director of SEESOX; Senior Research Fellow, St Antony's College, Oxford)

On 21 January 2015, SEESOX introduced its Hilary term seminar series entitled “Global South East Europe in a multipolar world” focusing on the region’s engagement with the world beyond Europe, dealing with big regional powers such as Russia or China, and addressing urgent issues such as economic development, energy security, migration or diasporas. The first session was a panel debate which focused on the region beyond europeanisation and its engagement with other global and regional powers. The panel consisted of Othon Anastasakis (Oxford), Spyros Economides (LSE), James Ker-Lindsay (LSEE) and chaired by Kalypso Nicolaidis (SEESOX).

Critical juncture? Bulgaria after the Snap Poll

The Conference Organising Committee: Rumena Filipova, Ivo Gruev, Ivaylo Iadjiev, and Stanislava Topouzova

On Wednesday, December 3rd 2014, the South East European Studies at Oxford (SEESOX) programme at the European Studies Centre (ESC), University of Oxford, hosted the first annual Oxford – Bulgaria Conference. The Conference, 'Critical Juncture? Bulgaria after the Snap Poll: Change and Continuity in Politics, Foreign Policy, and the Economy After the 2014 Elections’, was held in the immediate aftermath of the Bulgarian parliamentary elections on October 5th, at a time when Bulgaria faced a period of deep reflection on future reforms in the country. The Conference facilitated three specialised panels in the fields of international relations, domestic politics, and energy and economy, and included discussions on core topics of concern, including: the challenge of devising a coherent foreign policy, the outcome of the parliamentary elections, the role of civil society movements in Bulgaria, and the salience of structural and legal reforms in the energy sector. Over the course of the day, researchers, practitioners, professors, and experts alike, assembled together to incisively examine the core issues presented in each panel.

Greece in the Euro: Economic delinquency or system failure?

Adam Bennett (SEESOX Associate; Academic Visitor, St Antony’s College, Oxford)

On November 26, Eleni Panagiotarea, research fellow of the Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy in Athens, returned to Oxford (for the first time since completing her PhD) to reflect on the predicament of Greece and the Euro at a SEESOX seminar in the European Studies Centre (ESC). Greece and the Euro, the Euro, and Greece – separately and together – have been recurring topics of debate at the ESC ever since the onset of the Eurozone crisis. The experience of Greece, at the bluntest end of this economic earthquake, encapsulates dramatically many of the dilemmas and stresses that have rocked the currency union. As Eleni made clear in her presentation, despite the declarations of victory from the ECB and ESM, this sorry saga is not yet over.

The seminar was held at an unusually timely juncture, with the IMF (as lead player of the troika) poised to undertake the sixth review of the Extended Fund Arrangement, amid calls from some quarters that conditions now permit an early end to this arrangement (currently scheduled to expire in March 2016), making this potentially the last review and the last dose of the hated conditionality. With the European funding component of the Troika’s package coming to an end anyway in December, and with Ireland and Portugal already out of the clutches of the IMF, there was an eagerness in Greece to graduate (to use an IMF term) from its program. But was Greece really ready to do this?

My Child: When parents of LGBTs in Turkey speak out

Funda Ustek (Post-doctoral Researcher, Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London)

On 28 November 2014, Can Candan’s multi-award winning documentary “My Child” featuring the parents of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) individuals in Turkey was screened at SEESOX with the participation of the director Can Candan, co-producer H. Metehan Ozkan and parent Sema Yakar. The documentary takes us through the journey of the parents of LGBT individuals as they are intimately sharing their experiences of what it means to be parents, family, activists in a conservative, blatantly homophobic and transphobic society.