KÖNIGSWINTER DEBRIEF: Observations on the 74th Königswinter Conference

10. Dezember 2024 18:00

Baroness Smith of Newnham & Dr Wiebke Winter, MdBB

The Königswinter Conference is organized by the Deutsch-Britische Gesellschaft and the UK Koenigswinter Committee since its inception in 1950. For more information on past conferences, you can refer to our website www.debrige.de.

The 2024 Königswinter Conference took place in the Royal Over-Seas League in London on October 29th and 30th. The title of the conference was “Securing our way of life in an uncertain and changing world”. Around 80 participants from both the UK and Germany discussed topics including investment and growth, defence and security and the Trinity House Agreement, energy, climate and net zero as well as labour shortages and migration. Stephen Doughty MP, Minister for Europe and the Americas and Minister of State Dr Tobias Lindner delivered the opening speeches.

The event will be held in English and chaired by Dr Rupert Graf Strachwitz, Vice Chairman, Deutsch-Britische Gesellschaft.

Please join the event by using this link: (No prior registration required!)
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84009449941?pwd=badi5mH94668QJHibZ3b21ZPilXkWB.1

Baroness Smith of Newnham (Julie) and Dr Wiebke Winter, MdBB, who both attended the conference, will share with us their impressions and observations from the conference in accordance with the “Chatham House Rule”.

Professor Julie Smith (Baroness Smith of Newnham) is Professor of European Politics in the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) at Cambridge University. A Fellow and Director of Studies in Politics at Robinson College, from 2013 to 2019 she was the Director of the European Centre at POLIS. Since 2016 she has been Co-Director of the MSt in International Relations, the two-year part-time Masters programme co-organised by POLIS and the University’s Institute for Continuing Education. An expert in European politics, Julie was Head of the European Programme at Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs) from 1999 until 2003. She has been a member of the House of Lords since 2014 and was a member of the Lords’ International Relations Committee from its creation in 2016 until 2021. Julie read PPE at Brasenose College, Oxford, and took both her MPhil and DPhil in Politics at St. Antony’s College, Oxford. She was a Hanseatic Scholar in Hamburg and prior to coming to the Centre of International Studies in Cambridge in 1997, Julie taught in the International Relations and European Studies Department of the Central European University in Budapest. Julie’s main academic interests are in the history and politics of the EU. Her research focuses in particular on the UK’s relations with the EU; parliaments and budgetary politics; and democracy in Europe, including referendums, elections to the European Parliament, and the role of the European and national parliaments in the EU.
She has been involved in many collaborative projects on democracy and EU institutions – mostly recently in Reconnect, a Horizon 2020 project focusing on democracy and the rule of law.

Dr Wiebke Winter MdBB is the youngest member of the national board of the Christlich Demokratische Union (CDU). She is also Member of the Parliament of Bremen (MdBB) and deputy leader of the CDU Group. In 2021, she founded KlimaUnion e.V., an association, which advocates for more ambitious climate policies. Winter has studied law in Hamburg, Germany, and Oxford, UK. She obtained her doctorate in 2022. In her dissertation „Big Data and AI in Health Care“, Winter examined how data protection regulation can be adapted to innovation in the Health Care Sector.