University of Akureyri

Lecture Wednesday September 16 at 12:00h in room L 201, Sólborg. Speaker is Dr. Lassi Heininen, University of Lapland, Finland.What is the EU all about, is it a "remarkable success story" by bringing peace to the ‘patchwork quilt' Europe, and an attractive economic power with a single currency and deepening integration - thus, a "solution not a problem"? Or, its political elite's project, which is far away from its citizens, and a heavy bureaucracy - thus, "where is a problem, there is the EU"? There are no clear answers to these questions, but there are many discourses on the real nature of the EU, and many opinions on how to move on and how the Union should be developed. In his lecture at the Social Science Forum Dr. Lassi Heininen will discuss those questions and the role of EU as a world power and as a relevant actor in northern European geopolitics.

Dr. Lassi Heininen is a political scientist with research on International Relations, Geopolitics, Security Studies, Environmental Politics, Political History, and European Russian and Northern / Arctic Studies. - His current professional position is University Lecturer and Adjunct Professor (Docent) at Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Lapland, Finland. He is constantly lecturing in other Finnish and foreign universities in Europe, North America and Russia and among his other academic positions are Adjunct Professor at Frost Center for Canadian Studies, Trent University (Canada) and that at Faculty of Geography, University of Oulu (Finland) and Visiting Professor at University of Akureyri (Iceland). He is also the chair of the International Steering Committee for the Northern Research Forum.