Castle Talks on Cross-Border Cooperation: Conflict and Cooperation at EU Borders

CCBS Director Ruth Taillon was one of the speakers at this year’s Castle Talks, hosted by the University of Strasbourg, the CEPA Foundation, Dynamiques Européennes and TEIN in Strasbourg on 8-10 November. The Ireland/Northern Ireland border was – with the Catalan Space – one of the featured case studies. Following a keynote from Mr Karl-Heinz Lambertz, President of the Committee of the Regions, there were presentations on border regions as sources of conflict; border disputes in Europe and panel discussions on the Irish Border Region (Ruth Taillon and Eamon Rafter of the Glencree Centre) and the Catalan Space. The first day finished with a roundtable on “What if the border threatens us?” Day 2 involved presentations by student working groups from the Masters Programmes of the European Study Center, Heidelberg, the Institut d’Etudes Politiques, University of Strasbourg and the CEPA Foundation, which were then responded to by expert panels of academics and cross-border practitioners.