Professor Kalypso Nicolaidis nominated by European Council member of the new EU group of wise men`

Kalypso Nicolaidis has been nominated by the European Council a member of the new EU ‘group of wise men` (Reflection Group) on the future of Europe led by Felipe Gonzales.

EU leaders have approved a 12-member group headed by former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez and tasked with reflecting on how best to deal with Europe`s future challenges.

In a letter to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country currently chairs the six-month rotating EU presidency, Mr Gonzalez has proposed former Polish president Lech Walesa, who led the Solidarity anti-Communist trade union movement in the 1980s; Nicole Notat, the former leader of one of France`s biggest trade unions, the CFDT; former EU competition commissioner Mario Monti from Italy; and German conservative Wolfgang Schuster, who is the mayor of Stuttgart, to be among the group`s members.

Additionally, Lykke Friis, a Danish academic from the University of Copenhagen will join the team of consiglieri, along with Rainer Munz, an Austrian economist and head of research at the Erste Bank in Vienna; Rem Koolhaas, a Dutch architect and urbanist; and Kalypso Nicolaidis, a Franco-Greek professor of International Relations who teaches at Oxford University and has also taught at Harvard, ENA and Bruges.

The list will be completed by the UK`s Richard Lambert - director general of the Confederation of British Industry and a former editor of the Financial Times.

The reflection group - the brainchild of Mr Sarkozy - should start its work from January 2009. The group`s mandate stipulates that ‘its objective is to help the EU to pre-empt and more effectively tackle long term difficulties up to 2020-30`. The group says that it will seek to ‘identify the key issues and developments which the Union is likely to face and to analyse how these might be addressed`, including looking into ‘strengthening and modernising the European model of economic success and social responsibility, enhancing the competitiveness of the EU, the rule of law, sustainable development as a fundamental objective of the European Union, global stability, migration, energy and climate protection, and the fight against global insecurity, international crime and terrorism`. In addition, the group will also look at how to achieve a closer understanding between citizens and the Union. The group will present its report to the EU leaders meeting of June 2010.

Kalypso Nicolaïdis is Professor of International Relations, Director, European Studies Centre, University of Oxford