In this new episode of the Vienna Coffee House Conversations, IWM Permanent Fellow Ivan Vejvoda speaks with Austrian social scientist and co-founder and chairman of the European Stability Initiative (ESI) Gerald Knaus.
Gerald Knaus is the founding chairman of the European Stability Initiative (ESI), a think tank focusing on Southeastern Europe and the Caucasus, EU enlargement, and the future of EU foreign policy. In 2020, he published the award-winning bestseller Welche Grenzen brauchen wir? Zwischen Empathie und Angst – Flucht, Migration und die Zukunft von Asyl (What Borders Do We Need? Between Empathy and Fear – Refuge, Migration, and the Future of Asylum). In 2021, he received the Karl Carstens Award from the German Federal Academy for Security Policy.
In this Vienna Coffee House Conversation, Ivan Vejvoda interviews Gerald Knaus about the origins, achievements, and current challenges of Europe’s border-free Schengen zone. Knaus recounts how the European Coal and Steel Community, the Treaty of Rome, and the Schengen Agreement built a single market underpinned by mutual trust and shared law enforcement. He then assesses the strain placed on Schengen by the Syrian and Ukrainian refugee movements, and explains the collapse of the Dublin system under free movement. Turning to solutions, Knaus advocates centrist, humane control via safe-third-country agreements, expanded resettlement and labour migration in a Canadian/Australian model, and credible European deterrence independent of US guarantees. He closes by arguing for clear, merit-based EU enlargement and better storytelling to engage younger Europeans on peace, security, and the climate.
Gerald Knaus was a 2018/19 Europe’s Futures Fellow.
Ivan Vejvoda is an IWM Permanent Fellow and Head of the Europe's Futures program, a joint initiative of the ERSTE Foundation and the IWM.
