The Road to Europe: The process of EU approximation in the Balkans

South East European Studies at OxfordEuropean Studies Centre ▪ St Antony’s College   

The Road to Europe: The process of EUapproximation in the Balkans

Speaker

Jens Bastian

Economist, European Agency for Reconstruction

Dr Jens Bastian currently holds the position of Economist / Institution Building at the European Agency for Reconstruction in Salonika, Greece.  The Agency is responsible for the management of the main EU assistance programmes in the Republic of Serbia, Republic of Montenegro, UN-administered Kosovo and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.  Prior to his appointment in Salonika, Dr Bastian was responsible for monitoring investment strategies in the Balkans at Alpha Bank, a private sector bank in Athens, Greece (1998-2005).  He received his Ph.D. from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.  Between 1994 and 1998 he was appointed as DAAD-lecturer in the Political Economy of Transition at the London School of Economics. From 1992 to mid-1994 he was Research Officer at Nuffield College, Oxford.

 Discussant

Max WatsonUniversity of Oxford and European Commission

Dr Max Watson is Economic Adviser to the Director-General of Economic and Financial Affairs of the European Commission.  He is a Senior Member of St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and a visiting fellow in Euro-Asian studies at the University of Reading.  He was for­merly a Deputy Director of the IMF, where he was mission chief for Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Romania and Spain, among others, in the 1990s; head of the International Capital Markets Division and the Debt Issues Unit in the 1980s; and, earlier, Personal Assistant to Man­aging Director de Larosiere.  His early career was spent in the Bank of England, where he worked on international economic issues and banking supervision, serving as Secretary of the International Conference of Bank Supervisors, and Secretary of the EU Supervisors Groupe de Contact.  He was educated at Cambridge and INSEAD, and is a Fellow of the UK Institute of Financial Services.Monday 12 November, 5 p.m.Seminar Room, European Studies Centre, 70 Woodstock Road, St Antony’s CollegeFor more information, please contact julie.adams@sant.ox.ac.uk