Caroline de Gruyter: WHAT'S HABSBURG GOT TO DO WITH IT?

The EU can learn from parallels to the Austrian
Empire.


EU expert Caroline de Gruyter surprised many with her new book
“Das  Habsburgerreich – Inspiration für Europa?”. There is
little sympathy  left for the Austrian Empire today. But De
Gruyter traces striking  parallels between old monarchy and
new European Union: Like the Empire  then, the EU today
provides a roof over the heads of many nations and  language
groups, keeping the bigger ones in check and protecting the
 smaller ones. Playing for time, avoiding conflict, working
on  never-ending reforms and finding ugly compromises are
key  characteristics of both Habsburg and EU governance –
muddling through,  in short.


Hundred years after the First World War, Europe now faces a
similar  dilemma as the Habsburgs did then: As an
interstitial power squeezed  between rivals the EU is
constantly challenged. Caroline de Gruyter will  discuss
parallels and differences: Can cultivating buffer zones outside
 the external borders help? And: Will the EU as an
organisation survive  the war in the Ukraine or cease to
exist like the Habsburg Empire after  WWI?


Caroline de Gruyter is an EU affairs journalist
 based in Brussels working with the Dutch daily NRC
Handelsblad and  Foreign Policy as a Europe columnist and
correspondent. She is a member  of the European Council on
Foreign Relations, her commentary appeared in  The Guardian,
The New York Times a.o.. She is the author of five books,
 her latest was translated into German by Leopold Decloedt:
“Das  Habsburgerreich – Inspiration für Europa?”


Tessa Szyszkowitz is a foreign affairs
commentator for Falter and a London correspondent for profil
& Cicero. Her last book was Echte Engländer, Britain &
Brexit (2018). She is also Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal
United Services Institute in London.