EU Views: Felix Krawatzek
Name: Felix Krawatzek
Nationality: Germany
Occupation(s): British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Fellow at Nuffield College, University of Oxford, Department of Politics and International Relations
Connection to Europe: Felix Krawatzek’s current academic interests revolve around governance of and ideas about the future in a comparative perspective. He has a long-standing interest in questions related to collective memory in particular in the European context. He is also involved in a larger project studying migration and integration in a historical perspective.
Date of interview: February 13, 2017
In this episode, Felix Krawatzek draws on his research on how ideas about the future come into the play in the present in order to describe current trends in Europe, notably, the recent deviation in wake of the Brexit vote, from a linear path of “ever closer union.” He shares his belief that European citizens remain committed to – and ready to defend – liberal values. It is therefore important for the EU, as the institutional embodiment of “Europe”, to reassert its commitment to values and principles versus what Krawatzek calls “deals”, referring to the sorts of metrics that characterized the Brexit debate.