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Botzet on Brexit. It's a natural fit for a program titled "U.S. & the EU: Partners In the Face of Threats & Challenges" Klaus Botzet is the Council's Wednesday, November 30 speaker at Frisco's Stonebriar Country Club. He is the Head of the Political, Security and Development Section in the Delegation of the European Union to the United States. And these days he is called upon to discuss not only Brexit but also such things as China's "new islands" in the Pacific and its attitude toward its neighbors. At this moment, the British exit from the European Union is the captivating topic as the United Kingdom makes plans to "push the button on Article 50" (the exit process from the EU). Article 50 could lead to a complete departure from the EU by summer of 2019, according to some reports. British Prime Minister Theresa May, speaking to the annual Conservative Party conference in early October, said, "Whether people like it or not, the country voted to leave the EU. We are going to be a fully independent, sovereign country, a country that is no longer part of a political union with supranational institutions that can override national parliaments and courts.” What will happen to England and to the currently 28-nation EU? Botzet will have explanations and opinions when he addresses the World Affairs Council's 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, November 30, breakfast program at Stonebriar Country Club in Frisco. Texas is the top exporting state to the EU, and Britain is Texas’ 11th largest exporting market ($4.4 billion in 2015). Rice University Baker Institute political science professor Mark Jones expressed concerns about Brexit’s effect on Texas in a Houston Chronicle story after the June vote. "It would be felt especially here in Texas, given that lower global economic growth would mean less demand for oil and natural gas and in turn lower prices for the Texas energy industry, which is already suffering." The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholar's Global Europe Program describes Klaus Botzet's field of expertise with a long list: "Democracy, Democratic Transition, Economics, and Globalization, Global Governance, International Development, Security and Defense, Europe, European Union, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Caucasus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine."