In this interview excerpt, Álvaro de Vasconcelos, co-founder and Director of the Institute for Strategic and International Studies (IEEI) in Lisbon from 1981 to 2007 and Director of the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) from 2007 to 2012, shares his optimism at the future of the European security and defence policy and discusses how this policy, by means of increased Franco-British cooperation, can help bring stability to the main areas of tension across the world.

In this interview excerpt, Joseph Weyland, Permanent Representative of Luxembourg to the European Communities from 1984 to 1991, Chairman of the Committee for Political Union at the Intergovernmental Conference that led to the Treaty of Maastricht in 1991, General Secretary in the Luxembourg Foreign Ministry from 1991 to 1992, Ambassador to London from 1993 to 2002, Ambassador to Brussels and Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) from 2003 to 2005, and Ambassador to Washington from 2005 to 2009, discusses his family background, his youth and his studies in law and political science at the Paris Institute of Political Science (in the public finance section). He also shares his memories of the student demonstrations in France in 1968.

In this interview excerpt, Joseph Weyland, Legation Attaché in the Political Affairs Directorate (Directorate I) of the Luxembourg Foreign Ministry from 1968 to 1969, recalls the circumstances surrounding his entry into the Directorate in 1968.

In this interview excerpt, Joseph Weyland, Legation Attaché in the Political Affairs Directorate (Directorate I) of the Luxembourg Foreign Ministry from 1968 to 1969, recalls his early experience as Legation Attaché and describes how the Foreign Ministry was organised.

In this interview excerpt, Joseph Weyland, Legation Secretary at the Luxembourg Embassy in Bonn from 1969 to 1972, discusses the circumstances surrounding his appointment to this post and the work he performed in this role. One of the issues on which he worked was the Aciéries Réunies de Burbach-Eich-Dudelange (ARBED), the Luxembourg steel company which had considerable financial interests in the collieries near Aachen.

At the conference EMU at the crossroads held in Luxembourg City on 6 March 2013, Jean-Claude Trichet, Honorary Governor of the Banque de France and former President of the European Central Bank, gives an address entitled ‘The road to an economic and budgetary federation in Europe’.

In this interview excerpt, Joseph Weyland, Legation Secretary and Delegate in the Permanent Representation of Luxembourg to the European Communities in Brussels in 1972, discusses his appointment to these posts in connection with the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council of the European Communities from January to June 1972. He was in charge of the Budget Committee and was involved in the establishment of a Financial Regulation for the European Communities.

In this interview excerpt, Joseph Weyland, Deputy Director in the Protocol and Administrative Affairs Directorate of the Luxembourg Foreign Ministry from 1972 to 1976, discusses his appointment to this post at the suggestion of Gaston Thorn, Luxembourg Foreign Minister from 1968 to 1980, Prime Minister from 1974 to 1979 and President of the European Commission from 1981 to 1985. He recalls the main issues he worked on at this time, particularly the reorganisation of the treaties department and the question of reparations for Luxembourg citizens who were forced to enrol in the German army during the Second World War.

In this interview excerpt, Joseph Weyland, Deputy Director in the Protocol and Administrative Affairs Directorate of the Luxembourg Foreign Ministry from 1972 to 1976, discusses his participation, during the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council of the European Communities, in the Paris Conference on International Economic Cooperation (CIEC) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Nairobi in 1976. The main aim of these two conferences, held during the oil crisis, was to stabilise the prices of commodities.

In this interview excerpt, Joseph Weyland, Deputy Permanent Representative of Luxembourg to the European Communities from 1976 to 1979, explains how he was appointed to this position in 1976 and describes the material and human resources of the Permanent Representation.