Europe after Brexit

This Red House Festival of Ideas on Europe discussion with José Ignacio Torreblanca discusses the difficulties in forming a supranational state and looks to analyse European disintegration.

About the debate:

This fourth Festival of Ideas on Europe session assessed the EU’s current situation and its imperative going forwards. In his introductory, English-language lecture, Torreblanca focused on the state of the EU, while the subsequent Bulgarian-language panel discussion took on the debate surrounding Brussels’ centripetal force and the role of Europe’s nation states.

In his lecture, Torreblanca spoke of the lack of adequate research on European disintegration. He stated that there are plenty of theories of European integration, but very few on European disintegration and that it is important to understand how this can come about, when it might be called a crisis and what consequences it might have.

In particular, Torreblanca, observed a historical neglect of politics in European structures and a lack of preparedness for the current return of politics to those structures. For him, this and the contemporary structural weaknesses of European institutions have combined to ensure that the shock of the return of politics provides an institutional threat to the EU, pushing it into a crisis.

Talking about this crisis, Torreblanca observed four key revolts which he deemed to be happening all at the same time (a revolt of the elites, the populace, the markets and the theory) and, closely associated with these four revolts, three acts of revenge (the revenge of history, of geography and of demography) which were both triggering the revolts and helping shape the forms that they were taking.