On June 9, the Atlantic Council hosted two roundtables to mark the release of the new report from the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security’s US-German Next Generation Fellows: “Through a New Prism: A Next Generation Strategy for the US-German Relationship.” The American Council on Germany (ACG) co-hosted both the morning and the evening events. The report, which twelve young Americans and Germans wrote in a little more than six weeks, calls for “less mistrust and less indifference” in the US-German relationship, for “more care, more investment…greater rhetorical restraint [and] a change in perspective.” The report incorporates eighteen recommendations in a range of issue areas including economics, defense, migration, diplomacy, intelligence, the media, technology, cultural exchange, and language study. It represents the culmination of the Next Generation Project the Scowcroft Center launched in February 2015 to develop practical recommendations for strengthening the US-German relationship.

Magnus Nordenman, Deputy Director of the Brent Scowcroft Center, introduced Dr. Steven Sokol, ACG President, who moderated the morning discussion. Next Generation Fellows David Eisler and Victoria Rietig provided an overview of the report and how it took shape. A vigorous discussion followed, including exchanges on the importance of sustainability and energy as a “next generation” theme, on the need to ensure that the discussion of US-German relations moved beyond urban policy elites, and on potential challenges posed by greater transparency in TTIP negotiations. Next Generation Fellows Anna Schiller, Michael Stock, and Christina Tsafoulias gave detailed descriptions of specific recommendations.

State Department Senior Fellow and Next Generation Project Coordinator Williams Martin moderated the evening event, which was an informal roundtable discussion for members of the Next Generation Network as well as other young Americans and Germans with an interest in transatlantic relations. Next Generation Fellows Anna Schiller and Christina Tsafoulias gave an overview of the report and the report-writing process, partly through a short video that transformed the report’s executive summary into Whiteboard images. Fellows Eddy Enriquez Arana, Lars Miethke, Victoria Rietig, and Michael Stock contributed to the energetic discussion that followed on a range of topics including TTIP, security, and differing perceptions of the bilateral relationship in the United States and Germany. Approximately twenty-five people were in attendance.

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