AKADEMIE FORUM: ROBIN QUINVILLE & CLAUDIA MAJOR

Reimagining the Transatlantic Partnership:
What a Strong Europe Means for the United States and Europe

For 80 years, the transatlantic alliance has served as the backbone of a rules-based international order. Today, that liberal order is eroding—and the United States is increasingly signaling a move away from the multilateral commitments and institutional leadership that once defined its global role. With Washington adopting a more interest-driven, transactional posture, Europe faces a strategic moment of truth. What does transatlantic cooperation look like when the old assumptions no longer hold? Can Europe become an autonomous partner—and what kind of global governance model might replace the framework that is now fading?

This event brings together leading foreign-policy experts from both sides of the Atlantic to explore these questions and chart possible paths forward for the transatlantic partnership: Robin Quinville is the former Director of the Wilson Center’s Global Europe Program and former Chargé d ’Affaires at the U.S. Mission to Germany, and Claudia Major is Senior Vice President, Transatlantic Security, at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Robin Quinville is the former Director of the Wilson Center’s Global Europe Program. She spent more than 30 years as a U.S. diplomat, serving primarily in Europe, including postings to two multilateral organizations (OSCE and NATO) and bilateral postings to Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, the UK, and Germany. She also spent a year in Baghdad. In Washington, DC, she directed the Office of Western European Affairs at the Department of State and served as a Wilson Center State Department Fellow for a year. Her last foreign posting was as the Chargé d’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin. She holds a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Smith College. She is widely recognized for her expertise in European affairs, alliance politics, and transatlantic cooperation.

Dr. Claudia Major is a German political scientist and widely recognized security expert, currently serving as Senior Vice President for Transatlantic Security at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Her research, advisory work, and publications focus on German, European, and transatlantic security and defense policy, NATO, deterrence and nuclear (dis)order, defense industry, and the Franco-German relationship. Previously, she was the director of the International Security Division at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), a German think tank in Berlin. She also held positions at the Center for Security Studies at the ETH Zurich, the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), the EU Institute for Security Studies in Paris, the NATO Department of the German Foreign Office, and Sciences Po Paris. She holds a diploma from the Free University of Berlin and Sciences Po Paris and a PhD from the University of Birmingham.

Vladimir Balzer is an award-winning journalist who grew up in Leipzig and studied in Dublin, Venice, and Leipzig. He began his career as a presenter, reporter, and editor at Deutschlandradio and MDR. He hosts, among other shows, the daily program Fazit – Kultur vom Tage on Deutschlandfunk Kultur. In 2022, he was selected to be a Kellen Fellow by the American Council on Germany. Since 2023, he has been a correspondent at Deutschlandfunk’s Berlin studio, where he also regularly reports from the U.S. He is also known as a commentator on German television, including ZDF.

Presented in English
With a musical contribution by students of the Barenboim-Said Akademie