Annual Conference 2024

30th Annual Conference on Alternative Economic Policy in Europe

"Europe and the world beyond the polycrisis: Possible futures"

 12th -14th September 2024

Co-organised by University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna 

Vienna/Austria

Photo by Aneta Pawlik on Unsplash

Recent developments in the EU need to be seen in the context of the disorder and polycrisis that has been generated by the process of disintegration of the neoliberal world order. A polycrisis is constituted by a multiplicity of shocks that may appear disparate, but that interact so that the whole becomes even more overwhelming that the sum of its parts. In the contemporary European configuration, it manifests itself through a set of interactive effects that include climate change, biodiversity loss, the Covid-19 pandemic, energy-, cost-of-living-, care, and reproduction crises, increasing inequalities, the war in Ukraine, an emergent hegemonic rivalry between the US and China, and a crisis of democracy.

The EuroMemo Group conferences in 2022 and in 2023 delved into the question of the polycrisis, analyzing its various aspects and implications.  Our 2024 conference seeks to look to the future, the emerging trends in the light of European and global developments, the tensions between opposing tendencies, the intensified global competition. 

This year’s EuroMemo Group conference will be jointly hosted with University of Applied Sciences, BFI Vienna and will take place on 12th -14th September 2024 (Thursday – Saturday) in Vienna/Austria.

The conference fees that help cover the cost of organizing the event can now be paid online by clicking HERE.

Members get a 20% discount in conference fees.

HERE you can find the Youtube link for the videos of our first plenary.

You can watch the welcome address held by Johannes Jäger (FH BFI Vienna), the introductory discussion led by Marica Frangakis and Magnus Reiner (co-chairs of EuroMemoGroup), Bastiaan van Apeldoorn (Free University of Amsterdam), Elisabeth Springler (FH BFI Vienna), and Agnieszka Piasna (ETUI, Brussels) to speak about the political and economic state of European Union.

Conference dates and location

Date 

12 – 14 September 2024

Location

University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna

Wohlmutstrasse 22

1020 Vienna

Austria

Program

“Europe and the world beyond the polycrisis: Possible futures.”

12 – 14 September 2024, Vienna/Austria

University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna

Conference Program

Thursday, 12 September 2024

14.00                    Conference Registration

15.00                   Welcome Address: Johannes Jäger (FH BFI Vienna); Magnus Ryner/Marica                                              Frangakis (EuroMemo Group)

15.10 – 16.30      Plenary I: Political and economic state of the EU

Panelists:

16.40 – 17.00      Coffee break

17.00 – 18:30      Plenary II: Overcoming eurocentrism – towards global environmental justice!

Panelists:

  • Patrick Bond (University of Johannesburg)
  • Sylvia Lorek (SERI Europe)
  • Ivonne Yanez (Accion Ecológica, Ecuador) (tbc)

19:00     Wine reception

 

Friday, 13 September 2024

9.00 – 12.00        Parallel Workshops

12.00 – 13.00      Lunch break (buffet)

13.00 – 16.00     Parallel Workshops

16.00 – 16.30  Coffee break

16.30 – 18.00     Plenary III: Findings from the workshops

Panelists:            

Workshop Co-ordinators

19.00     Conference Dinner

 

Saturday, 14 September 2024

9.00 – 12.00        EuroMemo Group Planning Meeting

Workshops and Papers

“Europe and the world beyond the polycrisis: Possible futures.”

12 – 14 September 2024, Vienna/Austria

University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna

PARALLEL WORKSHOPS

13 September, 09:00-16:00

Workshop 1: Towards ecological justice (Chair: Johannes Jäger and Judith Dellheim) 

  1. Etienne Schneider (University of Vienna) & Alina Brad (University of Vienna). Carbon removal and the politics of target design: Exploring mitigation deterrence in the making of the EU’s 2040 climate target.
  2. Ronan O’Brien (EMG/Independent researcher). Facing the future of climate change and related social and ecological questions in a European and global context, including the need for rapid change.
  3. Ivonne Yanez (Accion Ecológica/Ecuador). Europe’s ecological debt to people and nature in Ecuador: extractivism and green capitalism.
  4. Sylvia Lorek (SERI Europe). Care work in a sustainability perspective.
  5. Patrick Bond (University of Johannesburg). The Political Ecology of Carbon Border Taxes and the Just Energy Transition: Arguments for and against Europe’s ‘imperialist-protectionist’ climate sanctions against South Africa.

Background paper: Judith Dellhiem (EMG/Rosa Luxemburg Foundation). On European policy strategies of ruling and opposition forces.

 

Workshop 2: Europe in a world of intensified geopolitical conflict (Chair: Werner Raza) 

  1. Chiara Bonaiuti (Newcastle University). EU planetary politics and intersectional feminism: An alternative way out from the war in Ukraine and multiple EU crises.
  2. Károly Lóránt (Journalist/Hungary). From promises to Gorbachev to the war in Ukraine.
  3. Vassilis K. Fouskas (University of East London). International Law and Power-Politics in the European Periphery. Ukraine and Palestine.
  4. Alan Cafruny (Hamilton College USA) & Ksenia Kirkham (Kings College London). The Atlantic Alliance and the War in Ukraine: Can the EU Exercise Strategic Autonomy?
  5. Anna Laetitia Rauchenwald (University of Vienna). Rearmament in Europe: The unfolding of a political-economic mechanism.

 

Workshop 3: The Euro at 25. Towards a responsible international monetary governance (Chair: Marica Frangakis, Rosaria Rita Canale) 

  1. Jakub Szabó (Comenius University Bratislava). A Choice for European Monetary Integration: Politics of Growth Models between EMS and EMU.
  2. Matteo Giordano (SOAS, University of London). Tiered Euro-Monies: Perpetrating Monetary Hierarchies from the ECU to the Euro.
  3. Johannes Schmidt (Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences). The Introduction of the Euro: Who Warned, and Why?
  4. Rosaria Rita Canale (University of Naples Parthenope) & Claudio Cozza (University of Naples Parthenope). Financial imbalances, wars and the international monetary order.
  5. Stefanos Ioannou (Oxford Brookes Business School). Too-big-to-fail banking in Europe. An enduring challenge.
  6. Caroline Vincensini (ENS Paris Saclay, IDHES CNRS). Reforms of economic policy governance in EMU: Is EMU at 25 fit to address economic, social and climate challenges? A critical political economy view.
  7. Juan Manuel Campana (Berlin School of Economics and Law) & Eckhard Hein (Berlin School of Economics and Law). Eurozone governance and the German demand and growth regime, 1999-2024.
  8. Heikki Patomäki (EMG/University of Helsinki). Disintegrative tendencies in global political economy, BRICS, and the possibility of a global clearing union.
  9. Marica Frangakis (EMG/Nicos Poulantzas Institute). The new EU fiscal governance framework: Deepening the depoliticisation of policy.

 

Workshop 4: Challenges of sustainable development/Towards sustainable development (Chair: Mikael Stigendal) 

  1. Catherine Enoredia Odorige (University of Dunaújváros, Hungary). An approach to Correcting the Flawed Interpretation of Migrants and Migration in our Common Future in the SDG 2030 Agenda.
  2. Gissell Huaccha (Leeds University Business School) & Gary Dymski (Leeds University Business School). Exploring the Business Dynamics of West Yorkshire: A Bottom-UP System of Provisions Approach in the Context of European Polycrisis.
  3. Mikael Stigendal (Malmö University). Bringing in the actors and their relation of force.
  4. Antonín Hořčica (University of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice Country, Czech Republic). Economic Models and Sustainability in the Time of Polycrisis: The EU’s Approach.
  5. Susan Murphy (Trinity College Dublin) & Cian McMahon (Trinity College Dublin). A Brussels Consensus? Qatargate and the (re)articulation of EU international Development governance.
  6. Bryn Jones (University of Bath), Bettina-Johanna Krings (ITAS Karlsruhe Institute of Technology), & Antonio B. Moniz (Nova University Lisbon). Platform Capitalism as a Trojan Horse: Combating Big Tech Threats to European Civil Society.
  7. Magdalena Maad (Vienna University) & Julian Maukner (Vienna University). Policy Designs of a Just Transition in Austria – Testing potential outcomes with SFC Modeling.

 

Workshop 5: Fiscal and economic governance and decent work (Chair: Maria Karamesini, Anne Eydoux) 

  1. Brigitte Young (University of Münster). The New Fiscal Rules and the Perils of Austerity.
  2. Christian Koutny (Kings College London). Space and Financialisation: The Unfolding of Financialisation on the Financialised Housing Market.
  3. Maria Karamessini (EMG/Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences). Public works and job retention schemes in Europe during the recent crises: Lessons for a European Job Guarantee.
  4. Bors Pavol (Comenius University in Bratislava). Impact of the Just Transition on the Employment Policy Strategies: Case Study of Slovakia.
  5. Armanda Cetrulo (Sant’ Anna school of advanced studies, CNAM). A “just” transition or just a transition? Trade unions and the decarbonisation of the automotive industry in France and Italy.
  6. Christina Wolf (University of Hertfordshire). Levelling up left-behind places: East Germany between ‘long-neoliberalism’ and state-capitalist cures.
  7. Anne Eydoux (EMG/Lise-CNRS and CEET, CNAM). Who cares for domestic workers? Domestic workers as poor cousins of the EU Just Transition.

 

Workshop 6: The NextGenerationEU programme — a closing window of opportunity? (Chair: Roland Kulke, Steffen Lehndorff) –hybrid session

  1. Karen Helveg Petersen (Consultant for international development organizations). The case of Denmark.
  2. Florencia Sember (University of Buenos Aires). The case of Italy.
  3. Josep Banyuls (University of Valencia) & Albert Recio (Autonomous University of Barcelona). The case of Spain.
  4. Roland Kulke (transform!europe). A first and preliminary assessment of the NGEU/RRF programme.
  5. David Karas (CEU Democracy Institute). The Economic Geography and Geoeconomics of European Industrial Policies: Modes of Strategic Coupling in Electric Battery Supply Chains
  6. Giulia Russo (Scuola Normale Superiore Firenze). Economic Determinants of Profit-Shifting of Multinational Corporations: an  Industry-Level Analysis in Italy.
  7. Michael Schwan (University of Groningen). “I don’t want your money…” The delayed and incomplete implementation of the German Recovery and Resilience Plan (DARP). (online participation)

Online registration and Conference fees

“Europe and the world beyond the polycrisis: Possible futures.”

12 – 14 September 2024, Vienna/Austria

University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna

 

If you would like to submit an abstract and/or participate in the conference, please

  1. fill in our online registration form by clicking HERE (only available until the deadline for this call for papers) and
  2. send your abstract to info@euromemo.eu

by 15 June 2024.

Please note that there is no deadline for registering for participation only.

 

Conference fees are introduced to cover the cost of the conference:

  • €100 standard fee,
  • €40 student fee and
  • €150 for participants with institutional support.

A discount of 20% for members will be offered.

Click HERE to pay your conference fee.

You can always become a member by clicking HERE.

Conference Dinner

Friday, 13 September 2024

“Europe and the world beyond the polycrisis: Possible futures.”

12 – 14 September 2024, Vienna/Austria

University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna

On the second day of the Conference, the 13th September, an evening conference dinner will be held at Gasthaus Möslinger.

The address of the restaurant is:

Stuwerstraße 14/1-5

1020 Wien, Österreich

Menu for a fixed price of 40€ is arranged for conference participants.

You can choose one of the following menu types: meat, vegetarian, or vegan.

Participation in our conference dinner requires online registration and payment.

Please register yourself for our conference dinner by clicking HERE and pay the conference fee HERE.

Practical information

“Europe and the world beyond the polycrisis: Possible futures.”

12 – 14 September 2024, Vienna/Austria

The conference will take place at the University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna in Campus Wohlmutstrasse.

The exact address of the conference venue is: Wohlmutstrasse 22, 1020 Vienna, Austria.

The metro station “Messe/Prater” of U2 line is located five minutes walking distance away from the campus.

Follow this LINK for additional information of how to access Campus Wohlmutstrasse.

Download HERE the metro map of Vienna.

Download HERE a printable map of historical center of Vienna.

Download HERE information on Hotel accommodation in Vienna.

Call for papers

“Europe and the world beyond the polycrisis: Possible futures.”

12 – 14 September 2024, Vienna/Austria

University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna

We would like to invite you to attend the conference and to submit paper proposals for contributions to the workshops.

For the 2024 EuroMemo conference, we invite papers that address the effect of the polycrisis in Europe and contribute to the understanding of future scenarios, ranging from the dystopian to the utopian.

Themes include, but are not restricted to:

  • Europe in a world of ecological and social crises.
  • Europe in a world of intensified geopolitical conflict.
  • The Euro at 25: Theory and Practice
  • The Euro and regimes of transnational economic governance
  • Return to protectionism vs a global monetary system
  • Employment and work in an age of digital and green transformation (also and especially of agriculture)
  • The EU as a global player in the context of global crises and different regions of the world

Proposals for papers together with a short abstract (maximum 250 words) should be submitted by 15 June 2024 to info@euromemo.eu. If possible, please indicate the topic which the proposal is intended for.

Applications from CEE and Balkan countries as from EU neighbourhood, and different networks of heterodox economists are highly welcomed. 

All submitted abstracts will be reviewed by the Steering Committee of the EuroMemo Group. Decisions will be made by mid-July. If accepted, completed papers should be submitted by 31 August 2024 to info@euromemo.eu.

After acceptance, full papers will be posted on the conference webpage.  There is also the possibility to publish selected papers in the EuroMemo Group Discussion Paper Series. 

We strongly encourage participants to submit short papers (5000 – 6000 words) and to explicitly address policy implications.

For further questions, please contact: info@euromemo.eu

The Steering Committee of the EMG would like to thank the University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, and the Chamber of Labor/Vienna for their generous financial support.