Experts & Staff
José Ignacio Torreblanca

José Ignacio Torreblanca

Head, ECFR Madrid
Senior Policy Fellow

Areas of expertise

Technology and geopolitics, EU strategic autonomy; disinformation and influence operations

Languages

Spanish, English

Biography

Dr José Ignacio Torreblanca is the head of the Madrid office and senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

He holds a PhD in political science from the Complutense University of Madrid and is a senior lecturer at the National Distance Education University in Madrid where he teaches graduate and postgraduate courses on the European Union. He was a Fulbright Scholar at George Washington University in Washington DC and a postdoctoral fellow at the European University Institute in Florence.

As an expert on disinformation, he has worked with Spain’s National Security Directorate Taskforce on Disinformation Campaigns at the prime minister’s office and submitted evidence on disinformation and foreign interference in the Joint Congress-Senate National Security Committee of the Spanish parliament.

He runs a weekly column in El Mundo called “Café Steiner” and is a weekly contributor on Spanish National Public Radio. Prior to joining ECFR, Torreblanca was the editorial director of El Pais where he authored a weekly column and a blog for 10 years.

His writing on EU politics and EU foreign policy has been published widely, including a 2001 book on eastern enlargement, The Reuniting of Europe: Promises, Negotiations and Compromises, one on the EU and the 2008-2011 financial crisis, ¿Quién gobierna en Europa?: reconstruir la democracia, recuperar a la ciudadanía?, and another in 2011 on EU foreign and security policy, La fragmentación del poder europeo. He has also published on the politics of populism, including a book on the rise of Podemos party in Spain in 2015, Asaltar los cielos: Podemos o la política después de la crisis, and the rise of the Spanish far-right in 2019, ¿Ha llegado Vox para quedarse?: la sorpresa Vox.

In his latest work, he has concentrated on the geopolitics of technology, where he has led various research projects focusing on EU external digital policies, including the EU-Latin America and the Caribbean Digital Alliance. In 2020, he published a book with Carla Hobbs on Europe’s digital sovereignty, La soberanía digital de Europa, and in 2023 published a journal article on “Social networks and democracy: problems and dilemmas of regulating the digital ecosystem”.

Foreign policy needs a rethink above and beyond Europe

At the end of June Spain reaches the end of its rotating presidency of the EU. Spain’s economic woes and the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty have made it a difficult presidency to handle. But there’s more at stake: the decreasing influence of the EU on the international stage puts Spain in a difficult position. Should it move away from Europe, and if yes, how?

Russia is shifting

The EU-Russia summit in Rostov is an opportunity for the new EU to show it can act effectively on the international stage. But only if it first tries to understand what Russia’s motives are and where it can help

Hardware & software

Spain seriously needs to review its priorities in public expenditure, and its attitudes toward education. Otherwise it will go on being that country which a former German foreign minister called “a beautiful country, full of four lane divided highways with no cars on them.”

Do an Obama

The present type of EU summit with international actors ought to change, otherwise we will be perpetuating a type of encounter that is closer to circus than to diplomacy, and where it is hard to tell who are the lions and who are the tamers

Europe without Europeans

Of all the problems facing Europe, one seems very difficult to solve: demographic forecasts, added to political ones, point to a Europe without Europeans

Holes in the cheese

Nuclear crises require a lot of unlikely events to occur at once, like all the holes in slices of Gruy?re cheese lining up. But as the nuclear ambitions of the Iranian president remind us, that is not a reason to ignore the perils of atomic weapons

Downfall

Volcanoes, Greek tragedy and government collapses. Divine intervention? Not entirely – greed and stupidity play a big part

Prejudices

Sorry, but protestants do not perform better than catholics and EU laws do not represent 80% of national legislation. It’s time to have another look at some deep-rooted prejudices

Trench warfare

Snubbing the European Union never came so easy or at such a cheap price

Publications

Articles

Glitch in the matrix: How Europeans should respond to the Trump-Musk tech agenda

Elon Musk and Donald Trump are setting out America’s new approach to digital technology—including social media and AI. The EU must understand their motivations and work with willing partners to curb negative influence in the global digital sphere

Showdown: What to expect from Spain’s general election

While Spain’s People’s Party leads the polls, obscure alliances and voter concerns leave the country’s future direction – and its impact on next year’s European Parliament elections – uncertain

Ukraine one year on: When tech companies go to war

The war in Ukraine has reinforced the strategic role of global tech giants in defence and security policy. NATO and the EU should learn from this as they try to deter future aggressors

Podcasts

Events

In the media