The European Institute is inviting Ambassador Pierre Vimont to teach a new course on diplomacy at Columbia in the spring 2017 semester.
Pierre Vimont is a Senior Associate at Carnegie Europe, and was until last year the Executive Secretary General of the newly-created European External Action Service. Before that, he was the French Ambassador to the United States, and also served as the Permanent Representative of France to the European Union and as the chief of staff of the French Foreign minister.
Ambassador Vimont will teach a seminar on “Diplomacy in Practice: the EU & the World” at the School of International and Public Affairs.
The course will introduce students to the practice of modern diplomacy through case studies of global or regional crises and the EU’s response to them. Students will learn how foreign policy is devised and implemented from the perspective of a professional diplomat.
The course will start with an introduction of the EU institutions involved in foreign affairs. Each class will then focus on a specific case study: the EU’s strategic partnerships, the migration crisis, the conflict in Ukraine, the Iran nuclear agreement, the Middle East, and Brexit. In each case, students will explore the interplay between the various instruments of foreign policy, including crisis management, trade, financial aid, humanitarian assistance, and public diplomacy.