Outreach Activity①

• The 40th Annual Conference of EUSA-JP, EU in a Changing Era – in Search for New Integration as its general theme, was held at Kobe Univ. on the 16th and 17th of November 2019. (the number of participants: 82 and 128 including general public)

• The EU Studies Association-Japan (EUSA-JP) is the main academic association for researchers in Japan specializing in the EU affairs. there are currently nearly 450 members who engage in research of legal, economic and social aspects of the EU. I'm a Board Member of EUSA-JP and in charge of organizing the Annual Conference of 2019.

The 40th Annual Conference of EUSA-JP was held whose general theme is EU in a Changing Era – in Search for New Integration at the main building of Rokkodai Campus, Kobe Univ.. It brought together experts in the EU studies.

The 1. Plenary Session I was held at the room 232, and three experts made each presentations from the viewpoint of politics, economics and legal science, and each theme: Reconsidering the 'Social Dimension' of European Integration, Issues in EU Economic Governance, and Challenges and The EU Competition Law Policy in the Digital Era and Japan . Before those presentations, Prof. Nakamura, the President of EUSA-JP, made a opening remark as a keynote of this Conference.

The 2. Plenary Session Ⅱ made presentations by two foreign speakers. One is Mr. Francesco Fini (Minister/Deputy Head, Delegation of the European Union to Japan) and the other is Prof. Dr. Richard Youngs (Warwick University) . Mr. Fini made a presentation concerning "The EU as a Global Actor: A New Era for EU-Japan Relations" and Prof. Dr. Youngs made a presentation corresponding to the Presentation of Mr. Fini and concerning "A Democratic Vision for the European Union".

I took a chair at the 1. and 2. Plenary Session.

On morning of the 17th of November, three sessions were divided and held. There were Politics Session, Economics Session and the Session of the EU and Central and Eastern Europe. the Afternoon session was open to general public as well, which should enable a wide non-university Japanese audience to learn from leading experts about the recent EU developments.

Four presentations were made: their themes were "An Analysis of the Politicization of European Integration: The Relationship between Europeanization and Politicization", "A Dynamic Stability Analysis of European Economies: As to the Importance of Synchronization", " A New Role for the EU in a Challenging Global World" and "EU Conditionality for Stalled Constitutional Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina".

After all presentation, Prof. Nakamura made a closing remark of the Conference of this year.