Danny Van Den Bulcke
EIBA Chairman

While a few years ago the relations between AIB and EIBA were somewhat tense, it would seem that everything has returned to normal and that there is a mutual respect from both sides and a willingness to cooperate without affecting the specific charateristics of the organizations. Scholars, who played an important role in EIBA, are increasingly recognized and asked to take up positions of responsibility in AIB. John Cantwell, a former president of EIBA and organizer of the 1992 Reading conference was in charge of the highly successful Milan meeting of AIB, while Torben Pedersen, EIBA ‘s Vice Chairman and organizer of the Copenhagen meeting in 2003, will be responsible for AIB’s San Diego conference in 2009. Yves Doz, who has been elected President of AIB, has been a regular member of EIBA’s Doctoral Tutorial, while Pervez Ghauri, the editor of the International Business Review, which is EIBA’s official journal, will serve as Vice President Administration in the new AIB Board. Although this is not the first time that EIBA scholars have been members of AIB Boards it shows that interaction between the two academies can be beneficial for both sides. All of them should be congratulated with their functions in AIB.

To confirm the good relationship, the EIBA Fellows organized a special panel at the AIB conference in Milan (July 2008), about the European Union at Fifty. With so many IB scholars coming to Europe, it was thought to be appropriate to evaluate the European Union in the area of FDI and MNEs, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. Vitor Corado Simoes wrote the following personal account of this panel session. 

THE EUROPEAN UNION AT FIFTY

Vitor Corado Simões
ISEG – Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestã
Technical University of Lisbon

On the 2nd of July 2008, the EIBA Fellows held a panel at the AIB Annual Conference, at Bocconi University in Milan. The panel was organised by Danny Van Den Bulcke, under the following title: ‘The European Union at Fifty – Foreign Direct Investment in the European Union: Achievements, Challenges and Corporate Responses’.

The panelists included Danny Van Den Bulcke (University of Antwerp), who chaired, John Dunning (Rutgers and Reading Universities), Juán José Durán (Autonomous University of Madrid), Marjan Svetliæiæ (University of Ljubljana), and the author of this article. It was a lively session, providing diverse perspectives about the European Union and direct investment flows. As John Dunning put it, there has been a changing interaction between the evolving economic integration in Europe and inward and outward direct investment.
 
The quality of the presentations notwithstanding, my idea now is not to report on the panel, but rather to profit from this opportunity to share with the EIBA community the headlines of my presentation. I think, in fact, that Europe is facing very hard challenges in an increasingly globalised and East-bound World.
 
In spite of its achievements, the European Union, and the West as a whole, is losing steam. The world is changing. As a result of globalisation, the centre of gravity of the world economy is moving towards Asia. Europe is ‘greying’ and has been unable to turn nice ideas into reality. The United States are facing the consequences of an ‘imperialist’ dream (in the sense used by Eric Hobsbawm), together with an increasing debt, a financial turmoil, and an uncertain future. Asia is therefore becoming the most dynamic space in the World.

Statistics show that the economic performance of Asian economies has been, throughout the present decade, much above those recorded by Western countries. Even European enlargement has not been enough to bring about a significant acceleration in European economic growth. There are, of course, question marks regarding China’s contradiction between an increasing economic openness and a non-democratic political régime. India also shows some weanesses, ranging from the management of change to the co-existence of  sharp economic and social contrasts between ‘peaks’ and ‘valleys’, to use Florida’s words. It is out of queston, however, that Asia has a huge and vibrant market as well as a large pool of  highly skilled, hard working, committed, and talented people, with an enormous ambition.

The president of Siemens recently defined the strengthening of the “global diversity” of Siemens top management as a key priority for the company. In a ‘shrinking’ and ‘fast-running’ World, one cannot expect the West to remain at the centre forever. Being aware of this fact is essential for Europe to design and implement a consistent policy to respond the challenges raised by a new economic landscape. Such a policy should not follow a defensive stance. It has to be based on a firm commitment to ‘embrace the World’, by building bridges and fostering mutually profitable interactions. Responding the challenges raised by a changing world is a must to build our collective future.