The European Union and the politics of events

27 October 2016

A month after the event, we can say the inaugural lecture of Prof. Luuk van Middelaar on “The European Union and the politics of events”, on 23 September 2016, has obtained good coverage in the Dutch national media.

On Friday 23 September, de Volkskrant wrote about in its opinieblog, almost live from the room;
On Saturday 24 September, NRC Handelsblad published an extensive interview (circulated earlier);
On Tuesday 28 September, De Groene Amsterdammer published almost the entire inaugural;
On 30 September, the daily Trouw published a long interview, focusing on the Turkey-deal re. migration as example of “event politics” (“We mogen blij zijn met de deal over vluchtelingen”, behind pay-wall);
On 26 September, on the Elsevier website, Prof. Afshin Ellian dedicated his column to the lecture;
On 26 October, the “science page” of our local Leidsch Dagblad published a short interview.

The nicest surprise: on 12 October, in his substantial “Thorbeckelezing” in Zwolle, Dutch Prime-Minister Mark Rutte quoted extensively from the Inaugural, in addressing with the impact of European politics on the office of Prime-Minister, fully subscribing to the analysis of a transformation from “regelunie” naar “gebeurtenissenunie”. To note that the Thorbeckelezing is a fairly prestigious annual lecture on politics and constitutional law, named after Thorbecke, drafter of the 1848 Dutch constitution.