Author: Javier Elorza.
Diplomat and career civil servant Javier Elorza, one of Spain’s most authoritative voices, guides the reader in Una pica en Flandes through the lesser-known side of European politics. Away from the cameras and party politics, this personal chronicle of his journey from 1986 to 2004 as a member of Spain’s permanent representation in Europe, where he held the main posts, shows the European Union from the inside, with power struggles, weak balances of power, variable pacts, secret agreements and national interests as the real protagonists, sometimes in a stark and brutal manner.
The author, in this unprecedented and privileged vision, opens the doors of the offices and the backrooms of the EU institutions, and unravels the role that Spain has played in Europe since its accession in 1986, as well as the economic and social boost that this has meant for our country. With the help of Felipe González and José María Aznar, he recounts in an entertaining and direct way the ins and outs of the arduous and exhausting negotiations in Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon, which have always resulted in Spain’s greater role and integration into the Union. This story has never been told before, and it is rounded off with a multitude of anecdotes about figures such as Giscard d’Estaing, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schröder, John Major, Jordi Pujol, Francisco Fernández Ordoñez, Abel Matutes, etc., in other words, those who have shaped the idea of Europe – and of Spain – over the last forty years.
Pages: 424
Publisher: Penguin. Collection Debate
Binding: eBook
ISBN: 9788419399809
RPP: 21,75 euros
