Lecture Abstract:

After securing a deal at the European Council meeting in February 2016 that supposedly gives Britain “special status” in the European Union, British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that Britain would hold a referendum on whether to remain in the European Union. This “in-Out” or “Leave / Stay” referendum will be held on 23 June 2016.

Recent polls showed that the votes for Britain to stay in the EU and the votes for Britain to leave are very close and with some 20% still undecided.

The issue of Brexit surfaced in 2013 when David Cameron in his speech committed the Conservative Party to seeking a renegotiated position for the UK within the EU, and promising a referendum on EU membership should his party win the 2015 General Election. Since then, much has been debated about the consequences and costs of Brexit for the UK, but much less on the implications of Brexit for the European Union.

This seminar will provide an overview of the current debates on Brexit, discuss the implications of Brexit for the UK and the European Union and speculate on some of the possible scenarios the day after the referendum.

About the Speaker:

YEO Lay Hwee is Director of the European Union Centre in Singapore since 2009. She is also Council Secretary and Senior Research Fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA), and Adjunct Fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS).

Lay Hwee sits on several Academic Boards. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Centre for European Studies at the Australian National University (ANUCES), the Advisory Board of KU Leuven’s Master in European Studies (MAES) Programme; and the International Advisory Board for the Centre for Asia-Pacific Studies, Tallinn University of Technology.  She is also a member of the Scientific Expert Panel of the Southeast Asia-EU Net, a research network funded under Framework Programme 7 (FP7) of the EU. She is also Co-Editor in Chief of the Asia-Europe Journal since 2011.