Van der Kooij (Erik)
Position:
DirectorFeelingEUROPE Foundation
Associate member Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence(Leiden University)
Expertise:
Strengthening citizen’s involvement in Europe’s integration,governance in the EU, innovation, finance.
Telephone number: / +31 (0)64 110 5845E-Mail: /
Company: / FeelingEUROPE Foundation
Website: /
Office Address: / Stoeplaan 11, flat 58
2243 CW Wassenaar
Background
Erik van der Kooijisliving and educated in the Netherlands and has turned several professions and business at financial institutions. Changing moral values, normsand capacities round about the millenium, brought Erik in 2004 into touch with the Dutch government’s notionto bring this challengeto the notice of the public through the international conference ‘Europe, a Beautiful Idea?’.Erik was also abled to participate the follow-up conference ‘The Sound ofEurope’, organized in 2006 by the Austrian government. These experiences triggered to foster and to share European values and affairs.
How magnetic it is to set foot upon policies, to learnand to take part in the events. Not only to share views during conferences on the future of Europe, to join in the Aspen Ideas Festival with Bill Clinton and to talk some minutes with Colin Powell,Alan Greenspan andin the Washington Ideas Forum to listen to Timothy Geithner, Richard Holbrooke (), but also to visit the NEXUS-Institute, the stage where Sonia Gandhi, George Steiner and Jurgen Habermas lectured, the Centre for European Policy Studies where George Soros lectured on financial markets, the President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek on common energy policy and where Barroso and Van Rompuy makes report and finally, to expierence the Greek Power Summit in Athens whereSteve Forbesjoined a gathering on helping Greece rebuild.
To do work sustainable, 'FeelingEUROPE' Foundation was established. This service act as an independent observer and fostersand guides European values and affairsto achieve more understanding and involvement with the aim to advance prosperity and well-being. For that purpose the desk also takes position as nexus between citizens, institutions, Europe, her identity and everything that is related in wider sense, mainly concerning cultural, philosophical and political fields. But also economical and technical fields are at stake. Furthermore, the desk delivers resonance and does research work.
Learnings
Required knowledge was obtained through formal and informal settings, autodidactism,and instruction and guidance from experts and community, as well as the opportunity toparticipate (summit) events.
Training on EU organization and decision-making, international politics, music history, history of art (colloquium) and getting acquainted with philosophy was taken in conventional manners.
In order to keep up to date and to increase knowledge, memberships are settled:
-in relation to art, culture and philosophy withNexus Institute;
-concerning European policies withCEPS(Center for European Policy Studies), EBN (European Movement Netherlands) and NGIZ(Netherlands Institute of Foreign Relations);
-due to economicswithKVS (Royal Society of Political Economy) andSMO(Society and Enterprise Foundation).
Beside it, and on ad hoc basis,also other institutions are regularly applied for conferences,meetings, workshops, presentations, lectures, seminars and symposia.
Expertise
Strengthening citizen’s involvement in Europe’s integration,governance in the EU, innovation, finance.
Publications
Erik publishedessays‘Russia’s return as superpower’ and ‘Ever took along with Zeus: EUROPA’, several brief papers like ‘A strong Europe of results: out and in the cave’,‘Unity produces strength: Keep Europe out of desintegration’,‘Who starts next?’, ‘From ice-bound banking sector to valid financial service providers’, notions on the EU’s multi-level system of governance Economic governance: From intentions to results and an activities report.
Research interest
Further integration of Europeand a strong foreign policy is needed to keep and to increase our prosperity and well-being. Therefore,Erik is not only engaged to do research on development of citizen’s sympathy and involvement in theprocessof Europeanintegration and processes within EU institutions, but is also focussed on how EU-institutions operate in order to be able to act collective and to perform strong and smart policies for the benefit of the citizens.
Projects
Erik believes that, ifEurope will be viable - apart from energy - four important key themes should be in front: citizen’s involvement, governance, innovation and finance. These key items are also the projects in which research is done.
The foundation is doing research work on how citizens can become more ‘Europe concerned’, on how Europe can become more innovative and on how money and financial markets have to change paradigmsin ordertobuiltasustainablebusiness.Due to the research area equal to the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence and the opportunity to join, the project onEU governance is started under the aegis of the Centre.
Citizens’ involvement
Questioned is how sympathy and involvement can be strengthened. After all, that is one of the main objectives of the foundation’s work. Interest in development of Europe’s process of unification is usually far from citizen’s perspective.Involvement depends on numerous divergent notions, situations and developments. Although the content of the foundation’s website tries to make the gap smaller, more have to be done. Benefits of European integration can play an important role in this and have to be put more in front. All these phenomena are demanding for research, in such a manner that the community gap can become smaller. Also the EU as supra-national body has to show continuously initiative in order to gather up this.
Governance
Due to research equal to the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence and the opportunity to join, the project‘Implementation and coordination in the EU’s multi-level system of governance’ is committed. This projects aims to obtain insights and views on how processes are working, as well as to recognize and how to overcome barrières.
Innovation
Innovation, one of the spearheads of the EU-2020 programme, is needed in all aspects of life and should be embedded as chapter in all EU-policies. It will drive critical change shift in leadership, habits and behaviours to develop new thinking, frameworks, models, and tools for growth rooted in sustainable values – values that connect us as people, business, governments, communities and countries.
Research is started up to form a clear notion of what innovation is, andto gather what conditions are necessary and succesful to let innovation grow and to get results.
Finance
In August 2007 a financial crisis broke out. A too free granting of credit hit the world hard. Employment, savings and pensions were almost vaporized. The crisis let see the inability to get all proper communications between macro- and micro economy, the complexity of the financial products, that money was used as transfer and not for exchange against goods, the not recognized interweave betweencountries, organizations and services, and that full rein was given to regulation and requirements for capital and liquidity.
The responsibility to avoid a next dip, emphasized by France and Germany through the Deauville Declaration, should lay the foundation for budgetary surveillance and stringent economic policy coordination procedures.
Research is focussed on two key issues; how the debt can be reduced and how a best new reality can be built.For this, new paradigms for money and financial markets should be considered onmonetary policy, theory of banking and financial markets, and the strategy and conduct of financial regulation and supervision. There is a strong relation between politics andfinancial markets. This interaction is therefore also subject of research.
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