National Centre for Research on Europe, University of Canterbury, Christchurch; Victoria University of Wellington; Australasian Association for Communist and Post-Communist Studies; New Zealand European Union Centres Network, and New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, Wellington

Europe Twenty Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall: Overcoming “East and West” – International Conference

Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand, 3-4 November 2009

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 symbolizes the end of an era which divided Europe, and the world, ideologically, politically and culturally. Twenty years later, many of the political, economic, social and cultural divisions that separated the European West and East are gone. Some, however, remain. The political and socio-economic transformations of the Central and Eastern European countries since the 1990s and the long accession process and integration that brought ten post-communist countries into the enlarged European Union have only partially eliminated the economic and socio-cultural differences between East and West. These differences are reflected not only in significantly lower living standards, but also in problems like disproportionately high crime rates, levels of corruption and a process of depopulation in the newcomers to the EU. Moreover, new divisions have emerged between the European Union members and post-Communist states beyond its borders.

This conference reflects on the origin, nature and impact of the divisions between the ‘two Europes’.

Keynote speakers for the conference include: Rt. Hon. Lord Christopher Patten of Barnes, former UK Minister and EU Commissioner, Prof. Dr. Michael Zürn, Director, Department of Transnational Conflict and International Institutions at the Social Science Research Centre Berlin (WZB), and Mr. George Cunningham, Chargé d'Affaires a.i. of the European Commission Delegation to New Zealand.