Baylor to Co-Sponsor International Conference in England

by Alan Hunt

WACO, Texas - Baylor University will co-sponsor a two-day international conference in London, England, next month to discuss the future of the Atlantic Community.
The program, scheduled for June 19-20 on the campus of Middlesex University, is titled, "The European Union, NAFTA and the Atlantic Relationship: Competing Blocks or a New Trans-Atlantic World." Conference sponsors are Baylor and Middlesex universities and the Atlantic Council of the United Kingdom, which promotes knowledge and understanding of the role of the Atlantic Alliance.
The conference will attract a number of distinguished speakers from England, the United States and Europe, including Robert Hunter, U.S. Ambassador to NATO; Sir Oliver Wright, British Ambassador to the United States from 1982-86; Andrew Burns, deputy under secretary of state to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office; and Dr. Robert Rogowsky, chief economist and head of operations at the U.S. International Trade Commission.
Other participants will include Lord Chalfont, chairman of the House of Lords All-Party Defence Group and former Minister of State for Foreign Affairs; Richard Ryder, former British Government Chief Whip, chairman of the Conservative Foreign and Commonwealth Council, and former political secretary to Mrs. Margaret Thatcher; Alan Lee Williams, director of the Atlantic Council of the United Kingdom; Dr. Bernhard May of the German Atlantic Association; Professor Geoffrey Lee Williams, director of the Centre for International Studies at Cambridge University; and Dr. Martin Holmes, director of business programs at Mansfield College, Oxford University.
Representing Baylor as a program participant and conference organizer is Dr. Joseph A. McKinney, who serves as the Ben H. Williams Professor of Economics at Baylor's Hankamer School of Business. McKinney, who has advised U.S. Congressional committees on NAFTA, is serving as a visiting Fulbright Professor at Middlesex University. He is due to return to Baylor at the beginning of July.

McKinney said, "With the end of the Cold War, there is some concern on both sides of the Atlantic that the ties which held together the Atlantic Alliance may have been weakened. A danger exists that the European Union will become self-absorbed as it expands its membership and moves toward monetary union. Also, there have been some recent expressions of isolationist sentiment within the United States. However, cooperation across the Atlantic will be essential to stable political conditions in the world and for the economic prosperity which can improve living standards for all concerned.
"In this conference we hope to take a look at ways in which the Atlantic Alliance could be strengthened, ways in which economic cooperation could be increased, and possible new institutions that may be called for in the changed economic and political situations facing both the United States and Europe. Baylor's mission as a major university is definitely international in scope, and our involvement in discussions of this type is important."
For more information about the conference, McKinney can be reached at the Center for the Study of International Affairs at Middlesex University, London, phone: 011-44-181-362-6019, or through the Internet: JOE4@mdx.ac.uk.