to download a Special Report of this meeting - The Europaeum

Welcome
context of the Europaeum, we are collaborating
on the new Master’s degree in European History
and Civilisation, which is jointly offered by
Leiden, Oxford and Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne.
The idea of the Leiden-Oxford Programme is
to bring together future and current leaders in
society, the private sector, the public sector, and
academia to discuss prominent issues in Europe.
It is an idea which came from one of our alumni,
Prince Constantijn, who attended our University
but also spent some time at Oxford University.
He felt there was a great need, and he is right, to
bring people together to discuss European affairs
– not just to listen to speeches, but to discuss
what is happening.
This is the third seminar organised under the
Leiden-Oxford programme. The first two were in
the Netherlands, starting in June of 2004. The
timing was intentional – that was the start of the
Dutch presidency of the European Union.
The first event was about the Shaping the
Future of Europe. I can remember especially the
last session with Wim Duisenberg, who, when he
was President of the European Central Bank, was
known for making comments which sometimes
caused a bit of turbulence for the European currency.
I can assure you that after he retired, he
was even more outspoken in his comments.
There was an extremely interesting session where
he gave a particularly frank assessment of Europe
as a monetary union and the role of Europe.
We had a second seminar in December, on the
possibility of Turkey joining the European Union,
another interesting topic for discussion. Both
conferences were extremely well attended and we
were pleased with the outcome.
The theme of this today’s conference was suggested
by Morris Tabaksblat, chairman of Reed
Elsevier, and formerly of Unilever, and author of
a recent report on the Dutch Corporate
Governance Code. He was looking very much
forward to being with us today to discuss corporate
governance, which he feels passionate about,
and it was with deep regret that he had to withdraw
for personal reasons at the last moment.
I am not going to say much about the theme
of the conference for the simple reason that I
don’t know anything about it, except that corporate
governance in Europe – please don’t quote
me – seems to be rather a mess. But maybe that
is something you want to discuss, rather than me.
It has been our great
please to help coordinate
this event. Our
Europaeum project began
in the 1990’s, when we
were launched to help promote
international debate,
research, and study on
current issues, with the
notion of giving scholars, future leaders, intellectuals,
and politicians a fuller sense of Europe.
Thinking about this conference, it struck me that
there are few themes which fulfil our mission as
well as the topic of today’s discussions. In a globalised
economy it seems that corporate governance
is a live international issue; and as Europe
continues to become more integrated, I think we
must consider developing rules and regulations
across borders. How and why is that best done
The Europaeum now has ten university members,
one from each of ten different European
countries. We sometimes like to characterise
ourselves as a “university without walls,” but in
this new Internet age we are all operating without
walls. At the same time, when you think of it, we
are in a very nice set of walls here in the Saïd
Business School, and we are delighted to be here.
There are active links between Oxford and
Leiden in many disciplines: notably law, but also
history, where we are running a joint MA.
Students on the programme spent the first term
in Leiden, the second in Paris, and are about to
come to Oxford for the third term.
Dr Paul Flather
Secretary-
General, the
Europaeum, and
Fellow, Mansfield
College,
University of
Oxford
7