Europe after the European election

Speaker Biographies

Santiago Cabanas is the ambassador of Spain to the United States. Previously, he served as ambassador to Algeria, where he started his mission in 2017. Prior, he held top-ranking positions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Spain, including director of the Minister’s Cabinet and director general for foreign policy. Amb. Cabanas has also been director general for consular affairs and director general for cultural and scientific relations. In addition to his ambassadorship to Algeria, he has been the ambassador of Spain to the Czech Republic and to Jordan. He previously served as a political counselor at the Spanish Embassy in Washington, DC, and as consul general in Miami, Florida. Amb. Cabanas holds a law degree from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and joined the Spanish Foreign Service in 1981.

Ben Judah is a research fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC. He is the author of two books, “This Is London: Life and Death in the World City” (Macmillan, 2016) and “Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell in and out of Love with Vladimir Putin” (Yale University Press, 2013). “This Is London” was longlisted for the 2017 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, and the book is currently a finalist for the 2019 Ryszard Kapuściński Prize for literary reportage. “Fragile Empire” was picked as one of the Financial Times Summer Books of the Year 2013. He has previously worked as a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations in London. He has been honored as a European Forbes 30 Under 30.

Yascha Mounk is an associate professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University, where he holds appointments in both the School of Advanced International Studies and the Agora Institute. He is also a senior adviser at Protect Democracy, a senior fellow at New York University’s Reiss Center on Law and Security, and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Mounk has written three books: “The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It” (Harvard University Press, 2018), which explains the causes of the populist rise and investigates how to renew liberal democracy; “The Age of Responsibility: Luck, Choice, and the Welfare State” (Harvard University Press, 2017), which argues that a growing obsession with the concept of individual responsibility has transformed Western welfare states; and “Stranger in My Own Country: A Jewish Family in Modern Germany” (Farra, Straus, and Giroux, 2014), a memoir about Germany’s fraught attempts to deal with its past. His latest book has been translated into 10 languages and hailed as one of 2018’s Best Books of the Year by multiple publications, including the Financial Times. A columnist at Slate, Dr. Yascha regularly writes for newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, Die Zeit, and La Repubblica. Dr. Yascha received a B.A. in history from Trinity College, Cambridge, and a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University.

Dalibor Rohac is a research fellow at AEI, where he studies the political economy of the European Union. He is also a visiting fellow at the University of Buckingham in the United Kingdom and the Institute of Economic Affairs in London and a research associate at the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies in Brussels. Before joining AEI, Dr. Rohac was affiliated with the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity and served as deputy director at the London-based Legatum Institute. In 2009, he interned at the office of the president of the Czech Republic in Prague. In addition to a number of academic articles in peer-reviewed journals, Dr. Rohac has written about European affairs for The Washington Post, The New York Times, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, and many other outlets. His book, “Towards an Imperfect Union: A Conservative Case for the EU” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), was included on Foreign Affairs magazine’s list of best books of 2016. Dr. Rohac holds a Ph.D. in political economy from King’s College London, an M.Phil. in economics from the University of Oxford, an M.A. in economics from George Mason University, and a B.A. in economics from Charles University in Prague.

Stan Veuger is a resident scholar at AEI, where he specializes in political economy and public finance. He is also the editor of AEI Economic Perspectives and a fellow at the IE School of Global and Public Affairs in Madrid and at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. He was a visiting lecturer of economics at Harvard University in fall 2016 and 2018. His research has been published in leading academic and professional journals, including the Journal of Monetary Economics, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, and The Review of Economics and Statistics. He is the editor, with Michael Strain, of “Economic Freedom and Human Flourishing: Perspectives from Political Philosophy” (AEI Press, 2016). Dr. Veuger also comments frequently on economics, politics, and popular culture for general audiences. His writing has been featured in Foreign Affairs, The National Interest, The New York Times, and USA Today, among others. His broadcast appearances include CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and Univision. He received a Ph.D. and an A.M. in economics from Harvard and an M.Sc. in economics from Universitat Pompeu Fabra. He completed his undergraduate education at Utrecht University and Erasmus University Rotterdam.