Poetry, Potted history and Geopolitics - "In Europe's Shadow"

The search for books which (try to) capture the soul of a country is an increasingly fascinating endeavour for me. Such books cannot be contrived novels or dry histories – the few exemplars I come across are generally travelogues containing a mixture of encounters (with contemporary or historical figures) and feel for landscapes and cultural contexts……

Until now none of the english-language books on Romania (one of the dozen or so countries I’ve lived in over the past 26 years) has been able to do the country justice – although there are a couple of very impressive histories (Boia's Romania - Borderland of Europe; and Djuvara's A Brief Illustrated History of Romanians); two very challenging takes on its post 1989 politics (by Tom Gallagher) -Theft of a nation – Romania since Communism and Romania and the European Union: How the Weak Vanquished the Strong; and two travelogues - one from the indefatigable Irish writer, Dervla Murphy - Transylvania and Beyond (1992) - as she ventured into a country whose borders were open for the first time for 50 years; and a delightful 1998 book produced by a Frenchman (with photos by an Italian) – and accessible on google - The Romanian Rhapsody; an overlooked corner of Europe by D. Fernandez and F Ferranti (2000)

But Robert D. Kaplan’s In Europe’s shadow: two Cold Wars and a thirty-year journey through Romania and beyond (2016) now slips into top place of a unique annotated list I prepared 2 years ago of books which anyone seriously interested in Romania needs at least to know about. You’ll find that list in Mapping Romania - notes on an unfinished journey

He reveals in the Prologue that his first foray into the country was in the 1970s as a bemused backpacker in central europe; but that in 1981, as a 29-year old with few career opportunities, he spotted a hole in the western media coverage of south-eastern europe and took a flight to Bucharest in what seemed then a forlorn hope of whipping up some media interest in the area…..  

A good review captures the poetry of the book very well - 

Kaplan’s writing is like the places he visits. It’s a terrain, a concentrated expression of a particular part of the world as he sees it, a very personal account though steeped in broad historical knowledge and familiarity with a wide range of sources. Kaplan’s sentences are like streets that lead us around a place we come to know through his eyes, either only through his eyes if it’s a place few people know (such as Romania)…….

It’s not a question of whether he’s got it right or wrong (Does the landscape really look as he describes it? Is his history of a town or a local population or a people accurate?).
 There is no right or wrong in this kind of writing. What we get is Kaplan’s view of the world and what matters is whether it compels our attention, becomes memorable and integrated into our own understanding. After all, we all know so little of it first-hand. Maybe one day we’ll go here or there, or at least in the neighbourhood, and we’ll know if it looks and feels familiar.

Kaplan is not a tourist, he’s a traveller. He doesn’t look, he sees. He’s not a visitor going from monuments to battlefields but one who lives his travels, immersing himself in every new surroundings, picking up—what makes us envious—new friends and colleagues that continue with him through decades.

This is the fourth Kaplan book I’ve read. As he explain in this Youtube presentation his latest book is a new departure with previous books (covering Asia, the middle East, Africa, the Mediterranean) giving horizontal slices to regions but this one being a “vertical” take on one country to which he has returned frequently in his life and by which he is clearly moved… 

There can’t be many Americans who know as many Romanians or as well as Kaplan, who is, so far as an outsider can get, inside as well as outside Romanian society and politics. And there may be no American who is so much simultaneously a travel writer and a geopolitical analyst, and happy to be so. When he discovered Romania in 1981 during the Ceausescu Communist years, “I felt that I was finally beginning to do what I always was meant to.” Kaplan, in other words, became not just a travel writer or a serious scholar. He had a vocation. 

"In Europe’s shadow" amounts to a kind of historical anthropology plus geopolitics, a deep study of a particular country and people. The point is to understand Romania itself and to use it as a way to apprehend Europe’s complex past. Romanian history involves the West and East, the geography between Western Europe and Greater Russia, more precisely the web of historical patterns and contemporary geopolitics between Central Europe and Eastern Europe. It’s a story that continues to be relevant today………………..

Those familiar with Kaplan’s work know that he’s as much a travel writer in the grand style as a geopolitical Realist whose studies of international relations and political leadership are also in the grand style, stretching intellectually over centuries and continuities of ideas.

As for the focus on Romania, it “was my master key for the Balkans... the Poland of southeastern Europe in terms of size, demography, and geopolitical location...” In Europe’s shadow is a demanding book for the lay reader but it shows how, at one and the same time, Romania is distinctive and a key to a broader and deeper understanding of contemporary Europe.
Most of all, Kaplan’s work exemplifies rare intellectual, moral and political engagement with the political order—and disorder—of our world.

The bibliographical references are impressive – although what seems to be an exhaustive list curiously fails to mention the only 2 serious studies of contemporary Romanian politics (by Tom Gallagher) - choosing instead to focus on older texts of Eliade and Cioran.....
My charitable interpretation of this omission is that Kaplan is not all that interested in contemporary Romania - despite a conversation with the previous PM and President.  Readers might have expected more than his superficial impressions of new constructions; the brightness (or otherwise) of paint or the lawn upkeep of Bucharest's parks...and to find some allusions at least to the scale of political corruption and the apparent success in the last 2-3 years of the new judicial system in throwing politicians in jail.....
But geo-politics, it seems, sees such issues as fairly minor.......... 

Another Danube Trip

Another trip north 2 weeks back – first to Port Cetate via Belogradchik and one of its vineyards and the Vidin bridge across the Danube. A huge shell of a synagogue at Vidin is left unexplained in the guidebook….

A nice website about Bulgarian public transport gives this experience of the Sofia-Vidin trip

A writer in residence at Port Cetate turned out to be a Schwabian from an old Danube family who is now producing wines in Hungary and writing a book on the different values represented by the Danube and Rhine rivers and the cultures around them….Claude Magris's Danube - a sentimental journey from the source to the Black Sea gave us an amazing take on that river (in 1989) but Ronnie Lessem's Global Management Principles (also 1989) not only identifies four very different clusters of values (north, south, east and west) but ascribes, to organisations and individuals alike, different life phases. There’s a nice summary here.   

A couple of decades ago, I used some fallow time I had to “bone up on” contemporary management writing (see chapter 6 of In Transit – notes on good governance) and have a continuing interest in the history of management thought (if that’s not a contradiction in terms!!). Lessem’s vignettes of the various figures in the management canon bring people and ideas alive in an exceptional manner.

Lessem, I am delighted to see, is still going strong and has moved from management into the wider field of economics – there’s a sadly rare video here of one of his presentations

He is one of these admirable people who challenge the narrowness of the intellectual boundaries which so constrain our thinking……  

After a couple of nights at Port Cetate, it was on to Craiova and a first visit to its superbly restored Art Gallery. Apart from great displays of the great work of Amman and Grigorescu, the visit was made worthwhile by a roomful of Brancusi sculptures and paintings by an artist so far unknown to me and who therefore doesn’t figure in my Introducing the Romanian Realists of the 19^th and early 20^th Centuries – Eustatie Stoinescu about whom little is known although I did find this little nugget. 

This is a wonderfully coy painting of his….

Drawing Back the Veil

Those wanting a sense of how the events of the last century have impacted on the soul of one Balkan country have a unique opportunity in Sofia these next few weeks. Three exhibitions in Sofia offer samples, first, of the paintings of Bulgarians who had the opportunity to study in France in the half-century before the communist takeover of 1944. By definition, those able to avail themselves of such opportunities came from richer families and were therefore often targeted in the immediate aftermath of that takeover.  They included figures such as Nikola Tanev, Tseno Todorov and Constantin Shterkelov. The National Gallery exhibition runs until 30 May.

Sofia City Gallery has an exhibition which some may think overdue called “Forms of Resistance – 1944-1985” with exhibits selected and presented to give a sense of how the world of Bulgarian (and central European) artists dramatically changed as their countries slipped behind the Iron Curtain from 1944. The State Security files (and prison drawings) of Alexander Bozhinov and Alexander Dobrinov (leading caricaturists) and others are a powerful initial exhibit… as are the 3 large industrial landscapes of one of Bulgaria’s greatest painters, Nikola Tanev, produced after his release from almost a year in jail. The roll-call of imprisoned or disgraced painters covers Bulgaria's main artistic names - and must have had a devastating effect on the creative spirit...... 
The gallery has produced an excellent video – with the paintings shown from the 4^th minute

I first realized the scale of the veil which has been drawn over this subject a few years ago when I was compiling an annotated list of 140 Bulgarian painters for my first booklet…. "Bulgarian Realists – getting to know the Bulgarians through their art". The caricaturist Rayko Alexiev had died in his first weeks in prison and the superb landscape artist Boris Denev  was basically was banned for life but, slowly, the internet revealed (with help from google translate!) scraps of information which are not offered in the various catalogues and monographs which the Bulgarian galleries publish.

The Bulgarians, it appears, do not like to discuss this period…..there are still too many skeletons… the belated attempts at official investigations have been half-hearted – as one woiuld expect when its main political party (BSP) is effectively the old communist party….   

The (bi-lingual) text which accompanies the City Gallery’s current exhibition is, therefore, for me the first detailed explanation of what exactly happened to artists in Bulgaria – both in the immediate aftermath and as communist power consolidated and evaporated…..    

Fascinating to discover that, in the early weeks of the takeover (when the bodies of the murdered political and government elite were still warm), 30 artists were meeting to set up the first Union of Artists – and that Nikola Rainov emerged as its president!

The Zhendov affair (of 1950) named some 30 deviant painters and led to the dismissal from their academic jobs of painters of the caliber of Ivan Nenov and Kiril Tsonev. Any hint of “mawkish naturalism” was pounced upon as an act of sabotage. A hierarchy of accepted painting led with portrayals of political leaders followed by glorification of labour and liberation. Landscapes were accepted only if, like Tanev’s, they showed socialism in action….     

As the exhibition recognizes, artists responded in very different ways – some with alacrity, others by turning to other activities, a few with various forms of escape or rebellion….

Not surprisingly in a part of the world in which recent history is strongly disputed, the City Gallery exhibition – which runs until 26 May – has attracted some controversy.

The final exhibition I want to mention is that of Bulgaria’s grand old man and doyen of Bulgarian art - Svetlin Rusev who is still very active at the age of 83 and whose latest work is on display in the  Seasons Gallery at Krakra St.

Rusev is a unique and towering figure - Chairman (1973-85) of the Union of Bulgarian Artists but then fell out of favour with the authorities for his rebellious activities. His position allowed him to build up a fantastic collection of art which he has donated to two public galleries, one in Pleven, the other in Sofia at what used to be his studio very near the Alexander Nevsky Church.

He straddles both the communist and the modern period

On resilience; and wines and painters from Pazardzhik

So much happening – the continuing human and political crisis of the ongoing wave of immigration to Europe’s shores; the Panama Papers and its political fallout in Britain – not least on the Brexit vote; the last remnants of the steel industry being sacrificed in Britain to the neo-liberal God…..and all I  do is wallaw in self-pity from the facial discomfort of the past 2 months!!

I know our various worlds have always been governed by cycles of gloom and bravado but, somehow, in the past half-century, social “expectations” seem to have experienced a tectonic shift – such as to have made us incapable of dealing with a world that is in decline….

A few years back, there was extensive talk of “resilience” – the social capacity to deal effectively with crises….why some communities seem to have this….and others don’t. Sad that this concept seems to have gone the way of all fads…Or is it perhaps that we have simply become overwhelmed with the notion of “Crisis”???

Bulgaria is a society which, at first sight, seems to have avoided the temptations of debt-driven modernisation….even in Sofia most people eke out a living – and one-person businesses seem to be the norm. A wine-tasting in young Asen’s little Vina Orrenda (at the Russian Monument) offers a real social occasion in such a modest society and I was glad to have made the trip last Thursday. Not just for the excellent taste of the Riverside range of wines being offered by the Manistira winery (3 whites; a Rose; and 2 Mavruds) but for the easy conversation which flowed between us. The left part of my face is still semi-frozen and I therefore have problems tasting – but I coped manfully!

It was the first time I had attended a group wine-tasting – and I appreciated the ceremonial aspects as Asen and a young lady first introduced the winery and the wines and Asen then poured us our respective samples…

It was also nice to be approached by one guest and be asked for my opinion on the wines….and to have the chance to speak to the 2 young ladies representing the winery (who remembered me apparently from the November wine-tasting!). It's in a village near Pazardzhik and I suggested they might put Pazardzhik’s most famous painter on one of their etiquettes – Stoian Vassilev. He was a prolific painter (the local museum is reputed to have some 5000 of his paintings and sketches). I have 4 of his - the first being very untypical. The second is more typical of his style......

The Royals and Brexit

Fascinating story early this morning about an imminent (and potentially constitution-shattering) intervention by the British Royals in Britain's current debate on whether to leave the European Union

Using outside experts who advised that the intervention would need to be presented by a figure with impeccable European credentials, a strong affinity with the continent and the character to speak out, the family has decided that the move should fronted by Prince Philip who has apparently "been hugely impressed by the way the EU stepped in, not just once but several times, to save Greece,” said one official with knowledge of events. “He admires what Tsipras and Varoufakis achieved – in fact he told friends he sees something of his younger self in the charismatic, motorbike-riding, eye-for-the-ladies Varoufakis. Mind you,” added the source, “he also thinks the Greeks would never have got into this mess if the colonels had still been in power.”,,,,,,,,

The leader of Vote Leave is Michael Gove – "that awful little leaker who put it about that the Queen wanted out. They can’t stand him. And as for Boris, the other main outer – he’s a cycling maniac from Islington. All he has done for the royal family is make it difficult to get around London in a decent-sized Daimler. And the third of the trio – Farage – what another awful little man".

Only when I reached the reference to the Greek colonels, did I realise that it is, today, the first of April!!!

Sofia's new galleries

An impressive new gallery has just opened just 100 metres from my flat – the Red Point Gallery – with a display of young Bulgarian graphic artists.

With the opening in recent years ago of the Finesse and Nuance Galleries in superb buildings in the heart of Sofia and, last autumn of the Nirvana Gallery, in a lovely 1920's house, Sofia now boasts an even more inviting choice for artistic exploration. And all within easy walking distance….

Clearly an update is needed of my 2012 post in which I extolled the virtues of the Sofia galleries, the more interesting of which I itemized in the little book Introducing the Bulgarian Realists

Then I listed 16 galleries – but the latest version of the book Bulgarian Realists – updated edition has 29  which offer examples of the older tradition in Bulgarian painting.

This makes commentary and comparison all the more challenging – but, owing no favours, I can let rip….

Well-displayed art in a lovely setting may warm one’s heart but is not actually my favoured setting for finding art – it signals the curator well down the marketing path with an eye to the higher end of the price market.

I vastly prefer the cluttered spaces of Rumen Manov ’s Neron gallery (Tsar Samuel 12) and Stefan Stefanov’s antique shop (in Tsar Assen 33) - where the promise of a hidden treasure lurks amongst the piles of paintings on the floor….    Valeri Filipov can also offer enticing piles of unframed paintings from the backroom of his impressive new gallery at 11 Vasil Levsky Bvd. 

Up until November 2015 I thought Victoria gallery was Sofia’s only auction house but Enakor gallery (just off Vitosha at the Court of Justice end) started strongly in summer 2015 and held 4 auctions in 2015 – the premises are probably the best Sofia has to offer….Their online catalogues can be accessed on the link…….In a way I’m relieved (or my chequebook is) that I’ve been missing out……perhaps because they’re just starting. Their prices are a bit on the high side – and their sales therefore only about 15% of what’s on offer.This is their November 2015 catalogue

The Loran Gallery at 16 Oborishte St mounts exhibitions every couple of months – focusing on Bulgarian painters from the last century. Their website has a good collection of paintings – a nice feature being the portraits of the 100 or so artists in the list. 

Despite the new galleries, however, it is Vihra Pesheva  of Astry Gallery who remains for me Bulgaria’s most brilliant impressario of private galleries - singlehandedly seeking out and promoting living artists – young and old – with frequent special exhibitions and materials. Vihra shares her enthusiasm so readily; and I never feel I am imposing when I drop in….. This is what I said some years ago about the Gallery –

Astry Gallery (under Vihra's tutelage) is unique for me amongst the Sofia galleries in encouraging contemporary Bulgarian painting. Two things are unique - first the frequency of the special exhibitions; but mainly that Vihra follows her passion (not fashion). I am not an art professional - but Vihra has a real art of creating an atmosphere in which people like me can explore the modern scene. I have been to a couple of other exhibition openings here and they were, sadly, full of what I call "pseuds" - people who talked loudly (mostly Embassy people) and had little interest in the paintings (except perhaps their investment value). 
Vihra and her Astry Gallery attract real people who share her passion and curiosity. It is always a joy to pop in there - and talk to her, visitors, artists and other collectors.

Illness Break

My readers will be puzzled by my silence of the past few weeks - so let me explain.

Global and European events do, of course, make it is increasingly difficult to present the positive note I strive for here. After all, this is a blog crafted by someone who values discovery and openness and who has always opposed the ravings of ideologues and conspiratorialists which seem to overwhelm us these days…….

But that is not the only reason for my silence of the past 6 weeks…… I have been hit by a debilitating condition which doesn’t seem to have a strong media profile – known in Britain by a term which resonates with seas-side holidays – that of “shingles”. It’s a virus which affects the nervous system and starts with Herpes (which I always associated with sexually-transmitted disease!) and can often then transmute (as it did in my case) into full-blown “Post herpetic neuralgia” which numbs part of the face and gives periodic sharp pains....

Initially I had toothache and the dentist was about to do an extraction (and a couple of implants) when the anesthetist alerted him to a heart irregularity, leading to a visit to the cardiologist who put me on a “halter” for a 24 hour test. By then the Herpes was identified – and, a week later, the full PHN.

For the next few weeks, therefore, I am resigned to this daily discomfort. I eat minimally and stopped all alcoholic intake – with my belly already showing the benefits! The downside, however, is listlessness…….

So please take advantage of this gap to read the various books I have put online….not just In Praise of Doubt – a blogger’s year but previous years’ posts which are available on an annual basis

And the thematic treatments which can be accessed at the top right of the blog…… 

Simulating Brexit

Most people are fed up with the way television presents “big issues” – either short soundbites or spokesmen for two extreme positions lined up to bash one another over the head with platitudes..

The Eurosceptic website Open Europe offered a brilliant example yesterday of an alternative format – that of Wargames – in which people are given a role to play in a simulated exercise whose object is to identify weak points in one's own and “enemy” positions.

Yesterday’s Open Europe exercise was about Brexit – with the morning being devoted to the  current negotiations and the afternoon to the scenario that the British people vote for withdrawal from the European Union. Such events require good prior briefing – and this is Open Europe’s excellent 24 page briefing. A short summary of the key moments and exchanges is here  

And this is the full event - for those who have 6 hours to spare!

I am no friend of the European Union – despite (or rather because of) my two decades of working on its programmes since 1990. And I was an early visitor in the mid/late 1970s to the British Commissioners at European Commission HQ (eg ChristopherTugendhat) and helped establish in those days a high profile for Strathclyde Region in the EU …I was not one of the Labourites (like Tony Blair) who supported the 1983 Labour manifesto for withdrawal – although by then I was getting a bit testy about the claims Europe was making for its funding programmes (whose financial input the British exchequer was quickly deducting from its budgetary support to the Region).

My experience in the 1980s of a variety of European working groups also made my very impatient with the overblown rhetoric of not only southern partners but with that of the French….it appeared that we talked easily only with Danes, Dutch and Germans…..

Most British newspapers have fed their readers for decades with tales of European bureaucracy – to the extent that its citizens seem now incapable of a serious discussion.

Few British people therefore appreciate that a vote for withdrawal would still keep them effectively bound up in the same set of regulations they profess to revile – as part of the “competition strategy” on which Britain has, ironically, led the pack….. 

About a dozen key points emerged from the Open Europe war game yesterday - 

None of the UK’s reform demands are considered easy- With nearly all of the (British) press coverage of the UK-EU negotiations focused on the demands to restrict EU migrants’ access to welfare, there is a perception that the other demands are comparatively easy. However, our negotiations suggested this is to underestimate the complexity and political sensitivity of other key issues. Reaching a UK-EU deal in February may not be as straightforward as some assume.  In Britain, the debate about whether all member states should be subject to a centralising interpretation of ‘ever closer union’ is often seen as anachronistic, symbolic and abstract.

However, the emotional commitment of others to the integrationist ideal should not be taken lightly. As former Irish Taoiseach John Bruton noted, “Small countries like Ireland see the EU as community of law and mutual solidarity…Removing the commitment to ever closer union would be like removing EU's emotional cement.”    Meanwhile, former German Deputy Finance Minister Steffen Kampeter described the idea of a ‘red card’ for national parliaments to block EU legislation as “crazy”, pleading with Britain to “please take that off the table.”
Perhaps predictably, the UK’s demand for greater EU ‘competitiveness’ was the least controversial, although even this prompted a fierce debate about why the EU was seen to overregulate – is it the fault of EU institutions such as the European Commission or that of the member states who often demand greater regulation?

Some states are ready to discuss fundamental structural reform, but others are not It is tempting to see the negotiations as a battle between the UK and a cohesive EU bloc, and as the UK is the demandeur in these negotiations, there is much truth to this. However, our simulation highlighted that other member states have very different views of how the EU should develop in the coming years. Enrico Letta, the former Prime Minister playing Italy, saw the UK’s reform drive as an opportunity to establish a ‘two-circle’ EU with different rights and responsibilities for those countries that want to integrate further and more flexibility for those such as the UK that do not. He hoped Switzerland might be tempted to join an ‘outer circle’ and that the ‘inner circle’ would make progress on wholesale reform of the Eurozone.

 But others – notably Germany, the Netherlands, and (for now) France – were for various reasons unwilling to countenance such a radical shakeup of the status quo.  

UK ideas lost in translation?  In the reform session, our continental negotiators all stressed their willingness to be helpful and make concessions to keep the UK in. However, certain topics (migration and welfare in particular) revealed how differently the British see things to their EU partners. To understand the opposition that many EU states have to any form of ‘discrimination’ between UK and EU nationals on access to welfare, you just had to witness how many around the table were shocked that the UK considers the free movement of EU citizens as ‘immigration’ at all.
However, for the British, as Sir Malcolm Rifkind said, this is a political issue where pragmatism should prevail. He noted that EU states and recent EU court rulings had established that it was perfectly possible to discriminate between your own and EU nationals when it comes to accessing out of work benefits and that Denmark had been granted special dispensation to apply restrictions on (predominantly Germans’) purchase of holiday homes on its territory.

UPDATE
Today (18 February) a full report was issued of the event and some conclusions draan


Sadly, most British viewers will dismiss the event as yet more proof of how impossible the EU is - after all all the "actors" (bar Norman Lamont and Rifkind) - were prominent fans of the EU. But the simulation was important in giving real emotional strength to European arguments we too often hear through the prism of British editorial spin....Other important points were -

 Member states hiding behind the Commission and the EU Treaty - In the game as in life, there seemed to be a significant number of member states using the European Commission as a defence mechanism and hiding behind bureaucracy to avoid some difficult political decisions. This was particularly true on the issue of EU migrants’ access to benefits where the Commission insisted no discrimination is possible, despite the UK player highlighting that law and treaties can be changed if there is the political will – it is in the end a political decision, EU law is not holy writ.  

Some states hope this renegotiation will settle the issue - During the reform session the Irish player asked, “Can we be sure that you won’t be coming back looking for more in ten years’ time?” He went on to add that he hoped the matter “would not be reopened again…we can’t live with this sort of uncertainty.”
Given the nature of the negotiations during the game and in reality, as well as the tight result expected, it seems unlikely this referendum will settle the issue.
Furthermore, as was noted by others during the session, Europe is changing and the issue of reform is not a one shot deal. Therefore, demands by other states for this to be the end of the UK’s reform push or the end of questions around the EU’s structure are likely to be sorely disappointed.  

This is going to be emotional either way - Both the reform and the Brexit sessions roused passionate exchanges. “You were our best friend, and we had a marriage. Now we are divorced,” was how former Swedish Trade Minister Ewa Björling reacted to Brexit, lamenting the loss of a liberal, free-trading ally. We lost count of the number of times that Brexit was likened to a messy divorce.  The Netherlands’ representative, former Social Affairs Minister Aart Jan de Geus, noted that while the Dutch public might expect its politicians to be rational about Brexit, the politicians are likely to be irrational and this could result in ‘sub-optimal’ outcomes for all concerned.  

There was a sense that the rancorous response of continental negotiators was not simply driven by the shock and anger of being spurned by Britain. It also revealed the vulnerability of the EU post-Brexit. The Spanish player summed up the potential impact of British withdrawal on the EU as, “A tsunami would be a very small thing compared to what would happen with a Brexit.” The German player said, “There is no such thing as a free lunch. Brexit is something which does not only affect you but affects our country.” Furthermore, some of the resentment appeared to be due to the fact that other EU member states felt they had spent time and energy trying to reach a viable deal with the UK – but that deal had then been rejected by voters.  

The afternoon session contemplated the scenario of life outside the EU - with the UK player, former Finance Minister Lord Norman Lamont,suggesting the best approach would be to seek a comprehensive free trade agreement, citing the EU deal with Canada as a good starting point since it removes almost all tariffs on goods and agriculture. However, given the links between the UK and the rest of the EU, clearly things would be more complicated. This led him to propose a ‘Canada+’ style agreement which could see such a deal extended to cross-border services, including financial services, with the UK expressing some willingness to compromise by granting EU citizens access to the UK labour market and providing some contribution to the EU budget in exchange. Ultimately, the UK will have to figure out what it wants outside the EU, but Lord Lamont’s opening pitch was a strong attempt to lay out the potential terms of a new relationship, which the Leave campaigns have been reluctant to spell out so far.  

Sending a message not to follow the example of Brexit - One of the more revealing moments of the Brexit discussion was the message that the Polish player Leszek Balcerowicz, a former Deputy Prime Minister, wanted to send to others that might seek to follow the UK’s example. “The common interest of the remaining members is to deter other exits”, he said, and added, “This should have an impact on the terms Britain gets – they should not be too generous.” Lord Lamont responded that this was a strange reaction from what was supposed to be an organisation based on the premise of mutually beneficial cooperation.  

Brexit would add to the EU’s list of crises -While some players warned that doing a post-Brexit deal with the UK would not be a top priority – perhaps as a negotiating ploy – former EU Trade Commissioner, Karel de Gucht, playing the role of the EU institutions, disagreed, saying that in reality a new trade deal with the UK would become the EU’s “top political priority.” This did not mean the UK would get an easy ride though, he warned.  

Perhaps Enrico Letta summed it up best when he said that “We are discussing as though the European Union is the centre of the world. That is no longer the case. In case of Brexit, we risk having years and years of discussions and wasting energy, time and money when the rest of the world will run without us…We have to look at the big picture – the rest of the world is not waiting for us.” For an organisation dealing with the Eurozone and refugee crises, Brexit could provide another existential threat.