The return of the nation state is said to be the foremost geopolitical phenomenon of our time. Gone is the commitment to globalisation and Europeanisation. National borders are being reinforced, and politicians promising to “protect” citizens from migrants, external regulations, and “alien” cultures are winning elections. The Council of the EU is already dominated by sovereigntist politicians, and the forthcoming elections to the European Parliament may well reinforce the renaissance of nations, states and walls in Europe. 

In his Schuman Lecture, Zielonka will ask whether the ongoing rebound is likely to live up to its promises in the era of intense connectivity and interdependence generated by digital technologies. His conclusions will suggest a Europe of networks emerging from the ashes of sovereigntist nostalgia.

Jan Zielonka is professor of politics and international relations at the University of Venice, Ca' Foscari, and Emeritus Professorial Fellow at St Antony's College, University of Oxford. He is also associated with the University of Warsaw, the College of Europe in Bruges and the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence. In the 1980s-1990s, he taught at the University of Leiden, and he still contributes articles to NRC Handelsblad.  Zielonka has produced nineteen books. In his latest The Lost Future: And How to Reclaim It, he makes a case for a new politics of time and space. Why is the distribution of time and space so unequal?

Schuman Lecture
Every year, Maastricht University and the City of Maastricht jointly organise this lecture in commemoration of Robert Schuman and the Treaties of Rome (1957) and Maastricht (1992). Robert Schuman (1886-1963) was the French Minister of Foreign Affairs and co-founder of the European Union.

On the 29th of April, Studio Europa Maastricht organises the third edition of the Maastricht Debate, in cooperation with POLITICO. In this debate Europe’s leading candidates will take the stage in Theater aan het Vrijthof to discuss the concerns of young voters. In parallel, a free debate watch party festival will take place on the Vrijthof Square.