On March 2nd and 3rd, the first edition 2023 of the Castle Talks on Narratives on Borders in Europe was held at the Château de Pourtalès in Strasbourg. The Castle Talks are part of the Jean Monnet Center of Excellence and the Jean Monnet Chairs of European Integration and EU Law at Sciences Po Strasbourg. Besides Science Po, TEIN was also represented by the Euro-Institute, partner of the Castle Talks since a long time. During this event on the topic of « Confrontation of Border Models – The narrative of Europe without Borders », practitioners, academics and students of different nationalities and studies met for two days to exchange on borders in Europe and cross-border cooperation under the prism of different disciplines.

The morning of the first day was marked by a Borderwalk on the perception and experience of crossing the border with Marlies Veneulen and Remy Kroese, cartopologists (a combination of cartographers and antropologists). The walk was followed by a reading in English (Hemingway) and French (Rahimi) on the border in literature by the actress Blanche Giraud-Beauregardt. The theme of borders was thus approached in an anthropological and creative way, before diving into a very concrete and important subject in a round table discussion in the afternoon: cross-border cooperation in the field of health with a focus on the Covid-19 crisis. On the second day, the focus first was on Euroscepticism and cross-border cooperation from a legal point of view, discussed by researchers, before various student groups then gave their presentations on different topics, such as cultural borders or the process of enlargement of the European Union. Finally, the day ended with a lecture by Dr. Inbal Becker-Reshef of the NASA Harvest program on the limits and the security of food in the presence of the US Consul General.

Photos: Marc-Alain Kohou