The University of Maine at Farmington is pleased to announce that on October 17 and 18 it will be hosting the second annual UMF Global Affairs Forum, entitled “A Troubled Partnership: The United States and Europe.” The UMF Global Affairs Forum is designed to bring discussions of important world events and interesting expert speakers to central Maine. The goal is to provoke discussion on the issues of the day among interested citizens, as well as students from universities in the area.

The keynote speaker will be Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister of Sweden, who has been active in many foreign policy endeavors, including bringing peace to former Yugoslavia. Bildt will also participate in panel discussions during the conference. Additional speakers include Congressman Tom Allen; Bowman Miller, Director of the US State Department’s Office of European Analysis; Thomas J. Simons, former US Ambassador to Poland and Pakistan and currently an Associate at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies; Renee Haferkamp, former Director General of the European Commission; Scott Erb, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Maine at Farmington; Louis Sell, a retired US Foreign Service Officer and adjunct Professor of History and Political Science at UMF. Kenneth Orosz, Instructor of History at UMF, will moderate a panel discussion of the presentations.

The conference will explore the ongoing evolution of the relationship between the United States and Europe in response to the global war on terrorism, disagreements on multilateral accords, nuclear proliferation, economic uncertainty, environmental crises, and ongoing economic uncertainty. Among the issues to be explored are the future of NATO, the impact of the European Union on transatlantic relations, European and American differences on a variety of multilateral accords, including the International Criminal Court and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and differing approaches to security policy. This is the second in our annual conference series on foreign affairs designed to deepen the understanding of global issues for Maine citizens, future teachers, UMF students, and those interested in our rapidly changing world.

The conference is sponsored by the International Studies Council at UMF, with financial support form the Maine Humanities Council, the UMF Global Society, the UMF Political Science Club and the University of Maine at Farmington. The conference is open to the public. Conference registration costs $25 for all conference activities, including attendance at the keynote luncheon. Student participation is free, except for the keynote luncheon ($10 for students). Information about the conference is available online.