1,008 days after Britain voted to leave the European Union and mere hours before it was scheduled to do so, the only certainty is that it won\u2019t. Yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where does this deepening uncertainty leave Wales, and what of its future place in the world? On 27 March, Cardiff University\u2019s Wales Governance Centre (together with the Welsh Centre for International Affairs) convened a star panel of academics and alumni to debate just that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What did we learn?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leaving the EU needn\u2019t mean leaving its programmes, according to Cardiff\u2019s Professor Kevin Morgan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to him, the UK could continue to participate in teaching and research programmes such as Erasmus+ and Horizon 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr Rachel Minto of Cardiff\u2019s School of Law and Politics highlighted the role that non-governmental organisations (NGOs) play in diplomacy \u2013 lobbying for causes they believe are not championed by the state and representing Wales as a distinct environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In any post-Brexit landscape, their role will be critically important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As is stands, Wales has better \u201csub-state\u201d access to Europe than almost any other comparable nation, according to Dr Elin Royles. It enjoys full accreditation to represent itself independently at key meetings and committees. Can it maintain this status?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Devolution is 20 years old, but for some corners of Whitehall it\u2019s like it never happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s the view of former UK Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Sir Emyr Jones Parry (BSc 1968, PgDip 1969, Hon 2003). In order to have Wales\u2019 view represented on the world stage, we must first ensure it is heard here at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Eluned Morgan (Hon 2012), Minister for International Relations and the Welsh Language, Brexit is just one piece of the puzzle: the US-China trade war, a shift in the global economy and a rise in protectionism are all challenges of equal weight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To be an outward-looking \u201cnation of sanctuary\u201d, foreign relations needs to be incorporated into the brief of every Welsh government minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can\u2019t simply walk off the international stage even if you wanted to, insisted Dr Christopher Huggins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Citing the example of the Swiss regions and Norwegian cities which actively engage with the EU from the outside, he was confident that whilst formal mechanisms might disappear, \u201copportunity will always be there\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1,008 days after Britain voted to leave the European Union and mere hours before it was scheduled to do so, the only certainty is that it won\u2019t. Yet.","protected":false},"author":1106,"featured_media":3793,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,38],"tags":[179,129,178,139],"class_list":["post-3690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-our-alumni","tag-brexit","tag-cardiff","tag-europe","tag-wales"],"meta_box":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3690"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3799,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3690\/revisions\/3799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}