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European Stories
Intellectual Debates on Europe in National Contexts
Last week there was a very interesting debate organized by the Spinelli Group in the European Parliament, which I attended together with Thomas.
The debate was about the new book called “European Stories” which was edited by Justine Lacroix(Professor at Université Libre de Bruxelles) and Kalypso Nicolaidis(Professor of International Relations, University of Oxford).
The book is basically a debate about the debates, analyzing different ways of how public intellectuals (political philosophers, scholars, editorialists or writers) in Europe perceive the EU and its history, focusing on the era after 1989. The book has a very ambitious aim – to provide an overview of how thinking about Europe and about EU varies depending on the country and the current time.
Twelve different countries have been selected for deeper analysis in this book – from founding to non-EU members states, in order to give a broader overview of the topic.
The debate about this book that was organized by the Spinelli group last week in the European Parliament was attended by policy makers, European lobbyists, Euro-commissionaires, as well as by representatives from different European associations. Apart from the two editors of the book, there were other panelists, such as Philippe Van Parijs(UCL – Harvard), Isabelle Durant(member of the Spinelli Group in the European Parliament) and Daniel Cohn-Bendit (Co-president of theEuropean Greens–European Free Alliancegroup in the European Parliament).
The topic of European integration is a very hot topic nowadays and it’s being discussed not only in Brussels, but in all 27 member states. In every single one of them, the view of Europe is very different and it’s strongly influenced by the national context – and that’s exactly what this book is trying to analyse and discuss.
“This is a brilliant book. It’s highly instructive chapters on how issues of European unification have been discussed from different aspects in different countries reveal in each case the strong dependence on national contexts -and the lack of mutual concern andcoordination we observe in Europe even among intellectuals.” (Jürgen Habermas)
“European Stories” is not meant only for political philosophers, historians or international relations officers, but for all readers that are interested in the intellectual debates about Europe.
(You can read and sign the Manifestoof the Spinelli group here)
By Miroslava Ganzarcikova, Comité Directeur 2010/2011