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.