{"id":42917,"date":"2025-10-22T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/uncover-ie\/?p=42917"},"modified":"2026-04-21T19:19:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T17:19:17","slug":"european-politics-hay-festival-master-in-international-relations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/uncover-ie\/european-politics-hay-festival-master-in-international-relations\/","title":{"rendered":"The state of Europe: Lessons from the Hay Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/span> 7<\/span> min read<\/span><\/span>\n

Geoffroy G\u00e9rard<\/a> and I sit on a sunny campus lawn in Segovia. It\u2019s Friday on Hay Festival weekend. The festival is an entire continent of informational content squeezed across four days\u2014it’s brilliant and overstimulating, but somehow all holds together. By this point, I\u2019ve been pinballed through debates on AI, European politics, and poetry recitals. Now, five espressos deep, I’m damp at the joints and visibly worn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Geoffroy, however, looks immaculate. \u201cIt’s all about taking that spirit of conversation from Hay-on-Wye to Spain,\u201d he says. \u201cThe festival was actually brought to Segovia in 2006 by a group of passionate culture lovers, like Sheila Cremaschi. IE and myself got involved in 2009. It’s since grown to be a highly fruitful collaboration of many institutions, all of which have sustained a great festival making hundreds of conversations happen every year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twenty years on, it\u2019s still going. And I\u2019m trying to connect the dots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is Europe’s issue with misinformation?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Rewind six hours.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The day begins in one of the campus\u2019s many vaulted halls. We, the uninformed mass, are here for historian Jona Lendering<\/a> and William A. J. Bok<\/a>\u2019s talk on misinformation in Europe. It opens with a frank statement from Lendering: \u201cfake news\u201d is no modern invention. Propaganda, he argues, has been shaping Europe\u2019s identity for millennia. \u201cInformation spreads faster than understanding,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd when people are overwhelmed, they cling to the simplest version of reality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As to whether we\u2019ll ever reach a \u201cpost-truth\u201d equilibrium, he offers little comfort: \u201cIf you convince people that nothing can be trusted, you win without lying. That\u2019s the genius of modern propaganda\u2014it breeds apathy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bok agrees. \u201cThe crisis of truth is cultural, not just technological. It\u2019s not about facts anymore\u2014it\u2019s about belonging. Misinformation becomes identity. We need citizens who feel that truth matters to them personally… Festivals like this remind us that thinking together is still possible. Truth isn\u2019t fragile\u2014it\u2019s just neglected.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How well do we really know Europe? How well do we really know ourselves? \u201cThe antidote is curiosity,\u201d says Lendering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The talk ends. Curiously, we move to the next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do we imagine the future with creativity?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s it all about, then? I drift from one hall to another, primed for new perspectives. And there are many.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First comes a panel on international poetry featuring Somali-British poet Momtaza Mehri <\/a>and Spain\u2019s own Violeta Gil. They speak about poetry as witness and reckoning\u2014how verse holds what history forgets, how diaspora turns absence into evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDiaspora,\u201d Mehri says, \u201cis witnessing a murder without getting blood on your shirt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWriting isn\u2019t about clarity,\u201d says Gil. \u201cIt\u2019s about learning to live with what can\u2019t be explained.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are treated to intermittent readings from the poets\u2019 anthologies. Mehri\u2019s quiet, finely wrought pieces receive polite ripples of claps. Gil\u2019s cascade of Spanish free verse almost elicits a standing ovation. It is honest patriotism. Mehri looks bewildered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there\u2019s no time to find the cohesion. The poets are swept off to sign books while, a few rooms away, a talk begins on AI and creativity. The panel includes a philosopher, a novelist and a spokesperson from the Ministry of Culture whose degrees and titles are read at the introduction. We didn’t catch the debate\u2014by the time they’re onstage, they all agree: AI bad, people good. Everyone in the room agrees. Those who don\u2019t are in a different room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it makes me angry\u2014it’s silly. I don’t know why. I take the microphone in the Q&A and make a post-structuralist protest based on Roland Barthes<\/a>, who I mix up with Michel Foucault<\/a>, but it’s OK because nobody notices. There is a moment of confusion, curtailed by the moderator citing the whole thing as a misunderstanding. He says it’s just anglospheric technophilia\u2014nothing to see here. The microphone is wrested from my clammy grip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Then there is a short lull before the headline act.<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Photo credit to Pablo Lorente<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The day has been building toward a talk with Sir Nicholas Clegg<\/a> in the Aula Magna. Incidentally, I have direct orders from the Social Media team to send quotes from Sir Nick before he goes on stage. I\u2019d been hoping to interview all the speakers, actually. I\u2019ve spent the last seven days spamming a thread of concierges and assistants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hoping for a few soundbites from Momtaza Mehri, I drift to the campus bookshop. The writers have already been and gone. Another message arrives from the Social Media team. I say I\u2019ve tried, that nobody\u2019s responding, that I\u2019m going for lunch, that we may need to pivot, that honestly, no, honestly, I have to go for lunch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s when I see Geoffroy G\u00e9rard at the campus bar. He’s buying a bottle of sparkling water. I rush over and tell him I\u2019m the one from the email thread. His eyes widen. Does he have 10 minutes, I ask?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He gives me 20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We sit on the lawn in the nearly-evening sun. Everything is running on time. I know this because I check the time constantly. We both do. Everyone does. \u201cIt’s all about taking that spirit of conversation from Hay-on-Wye to Spain,\u201d Geoffroy says. \u201cThe festival was actually brought to Segovia in 2006 by a group of passionate culture lovers, like Sheila Cremaschi…\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is Europe afraid of innovation?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Finally, the auditorium fills for the main event. Enrico Letta, former Prime Minister of Italy and now Dean of IE School of Politics, Economics & Global Affairs, takes the stage alongside Sir Nicholas Clegg, former Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and now Vice President of Global Affairs at Meta. It\u2019s a compelling double act: Silicon Valley pragmatism meets European idealism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clegg opens: Europe must find a way to match technological progress with political will. \u201cEurope has always been very good at regulation,\u201d he says, \u201cbut less good at innovation.\u201d As artificial intelligence accelerates global change, he argues, the question is not whether technology will advance but whether institutions can adapt. \u201cIf we only ever respond to disruption by building fences,\u201d he warns, \u201cwe\u2019ll wake up one day to find the world has moved on without us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Letta follows, placing the issue in the broader context of European democracy.<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Photo credit to Javier Segovia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDemocracy is slower than the market, slower than technology,\u201d he says, \u201cbut that is its beauty\u2014and its weakness.\u201d For Letta, the future of Europe depends on its capacity to balance openness with autonomy. \u201cThe European Union was built on solidarity,\u201d he notes, \u201cbut we now need a new kind of solidarity\u2014digital, technological, and strategic.\u201d After all, questions of sovereignty have shifted: \u201cIf data is the new currency, then who controls the vault?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both agree that the next frontier of politics will be digital, and that Europe\u2019s advantage lies in setting ethical standards for technology. Clegg calls it a matter of global leadership: \u201cWe have a chance to prove that freedom and technology aren\u2019t opposites.\u201d Letta adds that Europe\u2019s democratic model will only survive if citizens trust how technology is governed. \u201cIf Europe cannot build trust in the digital age,\u201d he concludes, \u201cit will lose not just influence, but purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t see the end. My phone buzzes with a WhatsApp: Jona Lendering and William A. J. Bok are free for an interview. I sweep up my things and head for the back door. The Social Media team pings again: Any luck?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I reply with a photo of the back of someone\u2019s head. On it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does a European identity crisis mean?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Jan, Jona, and I crowd around a table in an empty classroom. I hit record. Jona takes a long breath. \u201cEuropean politics,\u201d he begins, \u201cis a story about memory.\u201d Jan jumps in. \u201cBut memory isn\u2019t static\u2014it\u2019s constructed. Europe exists because we agree on certain myths about ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery generation rewrites its own version of Europe,\u201d Jona says, \u201ceach one convinced it\u2019s the most enlightened\u2014and that belief is the most European kind of chauvinism there is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the next half hour, they ricochet between the Enlightenment, social media, and the Treaty of Rome.\u201cMisinformation today is just the digital form of what empires used to do with marble and maps.\u201d Every European identity crisis\u2014from the Reformation to Brexit\u2014is really about who controls the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jona rubs his eyes. “We keep saying \u2018the European project,” he says, “But it\u2019s never finished. It\u2019s a verb, not a noun.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jan nods. \u201cEurope\u2019s crises\u2014migration, climate, disinformation\u2014aren\u2019t just political; they\u2019re existential. Europe is still the best place to think aloud. We argue, we doubt, we disagree\u2014and that\u2019s our strength.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outside, the light goes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do we cross the divide?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The final session of the day is about architecture. Dean David Goodman<\/a> and Fernanda Canales speak about her work in Mexico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery building is an argument with time,\u201d says Canales. \u201cYou can\u2019t design without acknowledging what stood there before you\u2014even if what you\u2019re building is meant to challenge it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They move through sustainability and culture. \u201cThe word \u2018sustainable\u2019 has been emptied of meaning,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s not a label\u2014it\u2019s a process. You can\u2019t just certify conscience.\u201d Goodman agrees: \u201cWe have to stop designing objects and start designing ecosystems. A building should generate public life, not just occupy space.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn one of our projects,” says Canales. “We built a tower so that people from one neighborhood could see across to another. It wasn\u2019t about height or skyline. It was about visibility\u2014about allowing people to recognize each other again. Sometimes connection is the most powerful design principle. When you change what people can see, you change what they believe is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then the day is done.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

On the bus back to the train station, medieval arches and brickwork flash by. They are the Roman stones, Renaissance fa\u00e7ades and modern glass held together by the care that we’d just touched upon. Then it disconnects; urban Segovia recedes into the Castilian plains. And then I am in the train station, waiting for my ride back to the capital. The concourse fills with many dipped heads, each shuffling torward their next journey. I drop my bag and peer out towards where the tracks converge in the distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Learn more about European politics with the Master in International Relations<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Be a part of the conversation with IE School of Politics, Economics & Global Affairs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Learn more<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let’s get a sense of direction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":42919,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":true,"datetime":"2025-10-22 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