The EU’s neighbouring countries have to varying extents become more deeply integrated with the internal market. They have also developed—or are developing—a certain degree of institutionalisation of their relationship with the EU. These ‘privileged partnerships’ have taken different forms, ranging from bilateral and rather static models to multilateral and dynamic models. Despite their differences, they face similar institutional challenges. As the Brexit debate shows, fully benefitting from the internal market while at the same time retaining full sovereignty comes close to squaring the circle. The conference attempts to draw the major institutional lessons from the different types of neighbourhood relations.  

The conference is open to the public and participation is free of charge, but registration is required before 22 January 2018 at 12:00. The working language is English.