Hay Festival Segovia 2021

A year ago, the Hay Festival Segovia staged a debate among journalists from Spain, Italy, Portugal and the Netherlands regarding European management of the pandemic. The European Union ended up reaching a historical agreement to mobilise 750 billion Euros, but the negotiation process created strong tensions between North and South. Now Europe is facing the post-covid era with elections in Germany and France, and internal tensions in southern countries. This is the time to continue the debate, but with different actors. On this occasion we present Sandrine Morel, Spain correspondent for Le Monde; Reinhard Spiegelhauer, Chief Correspondent in Spain and Portugal of ARD (the German public radio and television corporation); and Enric Juliana, Assistant Editor of La Vanguardia in Madrid.

Moderated by Miquel Molina, also Assistant Editor of La Vanguardia, a newspaper that is celebrating its 140th year in 2021.

How has the continent been affected by the trauma of Covid-19 in political, economic, cultural and social terms? What does this mean for the future? Five experts in international politics will talk about Europe after the pandemic, bearing in mind the German and French elections, the polarization of Spain, European funds and the consequences of Brexit. The guests at this event will be Arancha González Laya, Spanish Foreign Minister from January 2020 to July 2021 in Pedro Sánchez’s second government; Lucía Méndez Prada, political commentator, journalist and founder of El Mundo newspaper; Simon Kuper, Financial Times journalist and author of Barça: The Inside Story of the World’s Greatest Football Club; Ana Carbajosa, journalist and author of Angela Merkel: Crónica de una era and Daniel Dombey, the Financial Times’ Spain correspondent.

They will talk to Frederick Studemann, the literary editor of the Financial Times

The event will be introduced by Manuel Muñiz, expert in international relations and former Secretary of State of España Global.

In a year of recovery, new horizons and the need to look at the long-term future, the questions of the economy and political leadership play a crucial role. The Hay Festival has invited four international experts to debate these matters: Javier Maroto, Spanish politician, economist and Popular Party senator; Elcin Poyrazlar, Turkish writer and columnist whose reporting from London, Brussels, Istanbul and Washington has been published by media outlets including the BBC and HuffPost; Gonzalo Garland, Peruvian economist and lecturer and Executive Vice-president of the IE Foundation; and Pallavi Aiyar, Indian journalist, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the digital newspaper The Globalist and author of numerous books.

They will talk to the historian and Guardian journalist, Giles Tremlett.