The director of the European Council on Foreign Relations wrote recently that Europe could become either ‘a co-equal power in a tripolar world’ – or ‘roadkill in a Sino-American game of chicken’. How well Europe’s major players address, collectively and individually, their current serious political, security, economic and social challenges, does have global implications, including for Australia.

In this year’s Schuman Lecture, Gareth Evans will argue it is very much in the general interest that Europe not continue to punch geopolitically below its global weight.

Gareth Evans AC QC FASSA FAIIA has been Chancellor of the ANU since 2010. He was a Cabinet Minister in the Hawke and Keating Labor Governments from 1983-96, serving as Attorney General, Minister for Resources and Energy, Minister for Transport and Communications and Foreign Minister. During his 21 years in Australian politics, he was Leader of the Government in the Senate and Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the
House of Representatives.

From 2000 to 2009 Gareth Evans was President and CEO of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, the independent global conflict prevention and resolution organisation. Gareth Evans was made a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in 2012 for his “eminent service to international relations, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, as an adviser to governments on global policy matters, to conflict prevention and resolution, and to arms control and disarmament”, and in the same year was elected an honorary Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences of Australia (FASSA).