2012 edition

The State of the Union 2012 took place in Palazzo Vecchio (Florence City Hall) on 9 May, the anniversary of the Schuman Declaration, and continued on 10 May. The conference aimed at contributing to the analysis of the European Union’s current situation, at debating EU policies and the functioning of EU institutions. It brought together leading academics, policy-makers and opinion leaders.

Among the participants were: José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission;Mario Monti, Prime Minister of Italy; Olli Rehn, Vice President, Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, European Commission; Michel Barnier, Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, European Commission; Matteo Renzi, Mayor, City of Florence; Tony Barber, Europe Editor, Financial Times; Jean-François Cirelli, President, Eurogas and President, Gaz de France-Suez; Fulvio Conti, CEO, Enel; Barry Eichengreen, Professor of Economics and Political Science, UC Berkeley; Jürgen Groβmann, CEO, RWE; Daniel Dobbeni, CEO, Elia and President, ENTSO-E; Mark Leonard, Director, European Council on Foreign Relations; Philip Lowe, Director-General, European Commission – DG Energy; Jos Delbeke, Director-General, European Commission – DG Climate Change; Alberto Pototschnig, Director, ACER; Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, President, Ferrari S.p.a; Anne-Marie Slaughter, Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University and Former Director of Policy Planning for the US Department of State and Javier Solana, President of ESADEgeo and Former EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy.

The two sessions on 9 May were entitled “Economic Governance for Europe” and “The EU in A New World”. The first session addressed questions regarding the European sovereign debt crisis and the current challenges of the Eurozone and Europe as a whole, while the second session focused on the challenges of globalisation and on the role of the EU as a global actor.

On 10 May the Conference was entirely dedicated to assessing EU energy policy and was structured in four panels: “Achieving the Internal Market”; “Mitigating Climate Change”; “Implementing Security of Supply” and “Three Energy Pillars or Three Energy Policies?”.