The Minister for Foreign Affairs arrived at noon on a bright summer’s day. The first point on the agenda was a working lunch with among others a select group of researchers from the Department of Economics and Business Economics, the Department of Law, the Department of Management and the Department of Political Science. After the lunch, around 100 participants were waiting in the s-building ready to take part in the public debate, which was introduced by Dean Thomas Pallesen.

Kristian Jensen initiated the debate by giving a short presentation of the report and the challenges which he believed Denmark and the rest of the world are facing. This was followed by a panel debate between the minister and Philipp Schröder from the Department of Economics and Business Economics, Georg Sørensen from the Department of Political Science and Karsten Engsig-Sørensen from the Department of Law. Here, each of the three researchers zoomed in on the report and on the foreign policy challenges which they see as particularly important; e.g the relationship between growth and globalisation, the increasing globalisation scepticism, and the future role of the EU.

After the panel debate, it was time for questions from the audience expertly moderated by Derek Beach.  The debate was both interesting, constructive and open for all questions and points of view. After a brief networking session following the debate, Kristian Jensen left Aarhus BSS in time for the next meeting on his itinerary.