Event Details
Mon, March 18, 2019 to Tue, March 19, 2019
9:00 – 17:30
VILLA SASSETTI
Villa La Pietra
Via Bolognese, 120
50139 Firenze, Italia
Post Conference News: Article by Larry Wolff on the New Yorker on April 2, 2019: Opera and Brexit in London.
Program:
Monday, March 18
9:15 am Welcome Remarks: Larry Wolff, Executive Director, Remarque Institute; Co-Director NYU Florence
9:30 – 11:30 am EUROSCEPTIC UK AND IMMINENT BREXIT
Ed Miliband, Leader of the Labour Party, 2010-2015
Agnès Alexandre-Collier, CNRS, Paris; Maison Française d’Oxford
Ed Vaizey MP, Conservative Party Minister for Culture, 2010-2016
Marisa Bellack, Europe Editor, The Washington Post
Sir Stephen Wall, British Representative to the EU, 1995-2000
11:30 am – Lunch
1:00 – 3:00 pm EXIT AND SCEPTICISM: THE VIEW FROM BRUSSELS
What does the growth of political Euroscepticism in the member countries, and the possibility of future exits from the Union, mean for the future of the Union in Brussels?
Antoine Ripoll, European Parliament Liaison Office with the US Congress
Catharina Sørensen, Think Tank EUROPA, Copenhagen
Renaud Dehousse, President, European University Institute
Tamás Meszerics, MEP, Hungary, Group of the Greens
George Ross, Sociology Professor Emeritus, Brandeis; Jean Monnet Chair, Montreal
3:00 pm – Coffee break
3:30 – 5:30 pm MEDIA, ELECTIONS, AND EUROSCEPTICISM
What role does the media play in creating the public forum for European unity and European scepticism, especially in the context of political elections and referendums?
Alexandra Borchardt, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford
Federico Fubini, Corriere della Sera
Michaela Wiegel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Nicolò Conti, Università Unitelma Sapienza, Rome; NYU Florence
Giorgia Giovannetti, Economics, Università degli Studi di Firenze; NYU Florence
Roberto D’Alimonte, Political Science, LUISS Guido Carli, Rome; NYU Florence
Tuesday, March 19
10:00 am – 12:00 pm ECONOMIES AND SOCIETIES OF SCEPTICISM
How do the economic circumstances of the Euro and the Union produce sentiment for and against the European Union?
Giampiero M. Gallo, Italian Court of Auditors, NYU Florence
Marco Simoni, LUISS Business School; Former Economic Adviser to the Italian Government
Molly Nolan, History Professor Emerita, New York University
Christian Martin, Comparative Politics, Kiel; European and Mediterranean Studies, NYU
Sergio Fabbrini, Dean of Political Science, LUISS Guido Carli, Rome
12:00 pm – Lunch
2:00 – 4:00 pm EUROSCEPTICISM AND POST-COLD WAR ENLARGEME
How should we understand the emergence and importance of Euroscepticism in the post-communist countries that have joined the Union since 2004?
Jiri Pehe, Director, NYU Prague
István Rév, Director, Open Society Archives; Central European University, Vienna
Dorota Dakowska, Political Science, Université Lumière Lyon 2
Larry Wolff, Executive Director, Remarque Institute; Co-Director NYU Florence
Hadas Aron, Center for European and Mediterranean Studies, NYU
Jacques Rupnik, Political Science, Sciences Po, Paris
4:00 – 4:30 pm – Concluding Discussion
4:30 – 5:30 pm – Reception
Co-sponsored by NYU florence, the NYU Remarque Institute, and the NYU Center for European and Mediterranean Studies
Featured Biographies
Agnès Alexandre-Collier
PROFESSOR OF CONTEMPORARY BRITISH POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF DIJON
Agnès Alexandre-Collier is Professor of Contemporary British Politics at the University of Dijon. She is now a visiting academic at the Department of Politics and International Relations (University of Oxford) and a researcher at the Maison Française d’Oxford where she coordinates the group on politics and international relations, which includes a seminar on Brexit, populism and mainstream politics. She is the author of several articles and books in French and English including: Les habits neufs de David Cameron (2010) and Politics Reinvented. When Innovations Reshape Representative Democracy, co-edited with A. Goujon and G. Gourgues (September 2019).
Hadas Aron
FCULTY FELLOW AT THE CENTER FOR EUROPEAN AND MEDITERRANEAN STUDIES, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
Hadas Aron is a Faculty Fellow at the Center for European and Mediterranean Studies at New York University. She received her Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University in 2017. She earned an M.A. from Columbia, an M.Sc and a B.Sc from Tel Aviv University.
Hadas’ research focuses on populism, nationalism, international security, political narratives, and ethnic conflict with a regional concentration in Central Europe.
Marisa Bellack
EUROPE EDITOR FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Marisa Bellack is Europe editor for The Washington Post, overseeing bureaus in London, Paris, Brussels, Berlin and Rome. Previously, she served as deputy editor of The Post’s Sunday opinion section. She studied public policy at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School and media and politics at the London School of Economics.
Alexandra Borchardt
DIRECTOR OF LEADERSHIP PROGRAMMES, REUTERS INSTITTUE FOR THE STUDY OF JOURNALISM, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Alexandra Borchardt is Director of Leadership Programmes at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. There she develops and leads on the “Oxford Perspectives” seminar series targeting senior journalists and media managers. Prior to this she was managing editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), one of Germany’s leading quality dailies. She teaches “Leadership and Strategy in the 21st Century” at TU Munich, gives lectures and keynotes on digitalisation and the media and regularly publishes commentaries, for example with Project Syndicate. She is the author of Mensch 4.0 – Frei bleiben in einer digitalen Welt (Freedom in a digital world, 2018). She serves as Vice-Chair on the Council of Europe Committee of Experts on Quality Journalism in the Digital Age.
Nicolò Conti
PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, UNITELMA SAPIENZA UNIVERSITY OF ROME
Nicolò Conti is Professor of Political Science at the Unitelma Sapienza University of Rome. He has taught in international programs at the University of Siena, Georgetown University Florence Centre, FIT State University of New York Florence Campus. His main research focus is on parties, political elites, public opinion and the EU. He is the author of Citizens, Europe and the Media – Have New Media made Citizens more Eurosceptical? (2016 – with V. Memoli) and other volumes in the same field. His work has also appeared in major journals.
Darota Dakowska
PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF LYON 2
Dorota Dakowska is Professor of Political Science at the University of Lyon 2 and Junior Fellow of the Institut Universitaire de France. She has published on German political foundations, foreign policy and democracy promotion, on the post-communist past in Poland and Germany, and on the EU’s Eastern enlargement, Euroscepticism and the international dimension of Higher Education reform.
Roberto D'Alimonte
PROFESSOR OF POLITICS AT LUISS UNIVERSITY IN ROME
Roberto D’Alimonte is Professor of Politics at LUISS University Guido Carli in Rome. He has also taught at the NYU campus in Florence since 1995. He has been an American Council of Learned Societies Fellow at Harvard and visiting professor at Yale and Stanford. Well-known as an opinion writer, his editorials appear in Il Sole 24 Ore, Italy’s major financial newspaper. His main research interest today is political change in Italy and Europe, with a specific focus on parties and elections. He has worked with Italy’s former Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, as adviser on electoral reform.
Renaud Dehousse
PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE
Renaud Dehousse is President of the European University Institute, a position held since 1 September 2016. Before coming to the EUI, he was Professor and Jean Monnet chair in EU law and European Policy Studies at Sciences Po Paris, where he founded and directed the Centre d’études européennes from 2005 to 2016. He chaired Sciences Po Paris’s executive board from 2013 to 2016.
Sergio Fabbrini
PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL RELATION; DEAN OF THE POLITICAL SCIENCE DEPARTMENT, LUISS GUIDO CARLI
Sergio Fabbrini is Professor of Political Science and International Relations and Dean of the Political Science Department at the LUISS University Guido Carli. He is Recurrent Visiting Professor of Comparative Politics at University of California, Berkeley. He has won several prizes and taught at various universities. He has published seventeen books, one co-authored book and fourteen edited or co-edited books or journals’ special issues, and three hundred scientific articles and essays in seven languages. His recent publications include: Europe’s Future: Decoupling and Reforming (2019) and Which European Union? Europe after the Euro Crisis, (2015).
Federico Fubini
DEPUTY EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, CORRIERE DELLA SERA
Federico Fubini is a deputy editor-in-chief at Italy’s Corriere della Sera, where he covers economy and finance. Fubini has also contributed stories and columns to Project Syndicate, Die Zeit, and Foreign Policy. In his articles, Fubini describes the contemporary economic situation, while in his books he tells the stories and depicts the lives of those who come to grips with economic crises. Fubini uses these stories to show how people deal with an evolving globalized society and find the courage to pursue their own personal revolution. He is the award-winning author of four books, with a fifth on the subject of Europe to be published in April 2019. In 2018, he was a member of the high level group on disinformation set up by the EU Commission.
Giampiero M. Gallo
CONSIGLIERE IN THE ITALIAN COURT OF AUDITS
Giampiero M. Gallo is Consigliere (Judge) in the Italian Court of Audits, Fellow of the Society for Financial Econometrics, former Professor of Econometrics at the Università di Firenze and former President of the Italian Econometric Association. His research interests include financial volatility, financial crises, macroeconomic forecasting, and public debt sustainability. He has publications on these topics in top Journals. He also served as Economic Advisor to Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.
Giorgia Giovannetti
VICE PRESIDENT FOR INTERNATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS, UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE
Giorgia Giovannetti is Vice President for International Relationships of the Università di Firenze, visiting Professor at the European University Institute, and member of the “consiglio di Reggenza” of the Bank of Italy, Florence. She acted as Scientific Director for the European Report on Development (2008-2010), Director of the Research Centre of the Italian Trade Institute-ICE (2005-2007), Advisor for the EU Commissioner for Development (2009-2012), the President of the Italian Trade Institute-ICE (2004-2014), the Italian Treasury (2003-05) and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Trade (2002-05). She has been fellow and visiting Professor in several universities. Her work has been published in leading academic journals and presented in major international conferences.
Christian Martin
MAX WEBER VISITING CHAIR OF GERMAN AND EUROPEAN STUDIES, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
Christian Martin is the Max Weber Visiting Chair of German and European Studies at New York University. He also holds the Chair of Comparative Politics at the University of Kiel, Germany. Before joining NYU, Christian was an assistant professor of political science at the University of Hamburg and a visiting assistant professor at Northwestern University. Christian is interested in backlashes against globalization and European Integration. His most recent publication explains the strong electoral support for the far-right German AfD in the 2017 German Federal elections as the result of the successful mobilization of voters who felt “left out” of the political mainstream.
Tamás Meszerics
MEMBER OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
Tamás Meszerics is a Member of the European Parliament within the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance. He is the coordinator for the group in Foreign Affairs Committee and also a member of the Employment and Social Affairs Committee. He received his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. in modern international history from Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest. His major research interests include European politics, foreign policy analysis, 20th-century international history. He has been a visiting scholar at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University. He has been working at the Political Science Department of the Central European University since its foundation.
Ed Miliband
MP FOR DONCASTER NORTH
Ed Miliband was elected MP for Doncaster North in 2005, serving as minister for the Third Sector from 2006, and secretary of state for energy and climate change from October 2008. He served as leader of the Labour Party from 2010–2015, and has continued his work on tackling inequality as a backbench MP.
Mary Nolan
PROFESSOR OF HISTORY EMERITA, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
Mary Nolan is Professor of History emerita at New York University. She works on twentieth-century European-American relations, on German history, and most recently on social and economic human rights in the age of neoliberalism. She is the author of The Transatlantic Century: Europe and America, 1890-2010 (2012), Visions of Modernity: American Business and the Modernization of Germany (1994) and Social Democracy and Society: Working-class Radicalism in Düsseldorf, 1890-1920 (1981).
Jiri Pehe
DIRECTOR OF NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRAGUE
Jiri Pehe is Director of NYU Prague. From September 1997 to May 1999, he was Director of the Political Department of Czech President Vaclav Havel and later served as President Havel’s adviser. Previously he served as Director of Central European Research at the Research Institute of RFE/RL in Munich, Germany. He is a political analyst and the author of six books on politics as well as four novels. He has written extensively on developments in Eastern Europe for American, Czech, and German periodicals and academic journals.
István Rév
PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND POILITICAL SCIENCE, CENTRAL EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY
István Rév teaches history and political science at Central European University in Budapest, and directs one of the largest Cold War and human rights archives in the world. He is currently finishing a manuscript on the discovery and invention of evidence. Besides his academic work on recent European history and historiography, he regularly contributes to analysis of contemporary European affairs. He is the author of Retroactive Justice: Prehistory of Post-Communism (2005).
Antoine Ripoll
LEADER OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT LIAISON OFFICE (EPLO)
Antoine Ripoll has been leading the European Parliament Liaison Office (EPLO) in Washington DC since 2012, bringing together American and European Legislators and Political Stakeholders on the main transatlantic issues. Antoine has been a European Union Official since 1990, serving in various capacities, mostly at the European Parliament. He served for six years as Chief of Staff and Spokesman of the Majority Leader (EPP), and as Deputy Secretary General of the EPP Group (272 Members from 27 nationalities), in charge of the Presidency. He was awarded the title of “Chevalier de l’Ordre national du Mérite” (French Republic) for his commitment to EU integration.
George Ross
AD PERSONAM CHAIRE JEAN MONNET AND VISITING PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF MONTREAL
George Rossis ad personam Chaire Jean Monnet and visiting professor of political science, at the University of Montreal, professor emeritus of labour and social thought emeritus at Brandeis, and faculty associate at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard. Among his books are The European Union and its Crises (2011); What’s Left of the Left? with James Cronin and James Shoch (2011); Euros and Europeans: Monetary Integration and the European Model of Society (2004). He has chaired the European Union Studies Association (2003-2005) from which he received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017, acted as director at Harvard’s Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, among other positions. He is also an officer of the French Ordre des Palmes Academiques.
Jacques Rupnik
DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH AT CERI
Jacques Rupnik is currently Director of Research at CERI and Professor at Sciences Po in Paris as well as visiting professor at the College of Europe in Bruges and Charles University in Prague. He was adviser to president Vaclav Havel, Executive director of the International Commission for the Balkans, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (1995-1996), member of the Independent International Commission on Kosovo (1999-2000), and held various other high-level positions. His publications include The Other Europe (1989), Le Printemps tchécoslovaque 1968 (1999), 1989 as a Political World Event: Democracy, Europe and the New International System, with an introduction by V. Havel (2014), Géopolitique de la démocratization, l’Europe et ses voisinages (2014), Europe at the Crossraods: Democracy, Neighbourhoods, Migrations (2018).
Marco Simoni
LUISS BUSINESS SCHOOL; FORMER EECONOMIC ADVISER TO THE ITALIAN GOVERNMENT; PRESIDENT OF THE HUMAN TECHNOPOL FOUNDATION
Marco Simoni is a political economist with experience in academia and government. He is currently the President of the Human Technopole Foundation. He is also an adjunct professor at the Political Science faculty as well as the Business School of LUISS University Guido Carli in Rome, where he teaches on the political economy of Europe. Between 2014 and 2018 he was the chief advisor on international economic affairs to the Italian Prime Minister.
Catharina Sørensen
HEAD OF RESERACHAT THINK TANK EUROPA
Catharina Sørensen is Head of Research at Think Tank EUROPA. She has a combined research/civil service professional background, having also worked for the European Commission, the European External Action Service, and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She has researched the multidimensionality of public EU-attitudes since 2004, with a current focus on sovereignty-based Euroscepticism. She directs EUROPA’s regular surveys on Danish public opinion.
Ed Vaizey
MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT SINCE 2005
Ed Vaizey has been the Member of Parliament for Wantage since 2005 and is the Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. He served as the UK Government Culture and Digital Minister from 2010-16, and was the longest-serving Minister in that role. He was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 2016. In his role as Minister, Ed was responsible for the roll out of the successful UK rural broadband programme, the introduction of 4G, and tax credits for film, television, animation and video games, which have helped make the creative industries the fastest growing part of the UK economy. In addition, he played a key role in attracting inward investment to the UK tech economy.
Stephen Wall
MEMBER OF BRITISH DIPLOMATIC SERVICE
Stephen Wall was a member of the British Diplomatic Service for 35 years. He worked closely with five British Foreign Secretaries and was Foreign Policy Adviser to Prime Minister John Major. His European experience includes five years as Head of the Foreign Office European Department, two years as Britain’s Ambassador to Portugal, five years as UK Permanent Representative to the EU and four years as EU adviser to Tony Blair. He has written three books on Britain and the European Union.
Michaela Wiegel
JOURNALIST
Michaela Wiegel writes about French politics and economics for the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Sunday edition Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung and the weekly Die Woche. She is author of the first German biography of Macron: Emmanuel Macron: A visionary for Europe, a challenge for Germany, published in March 2018 (Europa Verlag). A graduate of Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, she studied as a McCloy Scholar at the John F. Kennedy School of Government (Harvard University) and holds a Master in Public Administration. She won the Robert Goldmann prize for her coverage on Jewish life in France and was appointed Knight of the French Legion of Honour.
Larry Wolff
SILVER PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AT NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, DIRECTOROF THE NYU CENTER FOR EUROPEAN AND MEDITERRANEAN STUDIES
Larry Wolff is Silver Professor of History at New York University, Director of the NYU Center for European and Mediterranean Studies, Executive Director of the Remarque Institute, and the Co-Director of NYU Florence. His research has focused on the relation between Eastern Europe and Western Europe. Wolff’s most recent book is The Singing Turk: Ottoman Power and Operatic Emotions on the European Stage from the Siege of Vienna to the Age of Napoleon (2016). His other books include The Idea of Galicia: History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture (2010), Venice and the Slavs: The Discovery of Dalmatia in the Age of Enlightenment (2001), and Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (1994). His current research concerns Woodrow Wilson and Eastern Europe.