Category: Future of Europe

Eulections’19 workshop with students @ Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal, December, 4, 2020

The Eulections’19 – Think, Decide, Change project took its roadshow to the Internet, adapting the debates and workshops to the virtual space. On December 4, 2020, the debate about the future of Europe continued with students from Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa who shared their perspectives about EU’s current and future challenges.

The event took place via Zoom and included two sessions with two groups of students and involved 64 citizens, including 63 participants from the city of Lisbon, Portugal, 1 from the city of Brussels, Belgium.

We’ve started the sessions by presenting the project to students and after that, a small video about Europe’s day. Using Menti, students shared the first word that came to their mind inspired by Europe and the introductory video.

After a debate about the students’ word cloud the groups watched a video about the EU’s political project and answered a quiz about the history of Europe and the European Union. Those two introductory activities aimed to set the floor for the discussion about the main topic of the event, the Five Scenarios for Future of Europe.

We started by looking at the Five Scenarios for Future of Europe with a video and a presentation. After that, the two groups were organized in smaller groups in separate Zoom rooms to choose and reflect about one of the scenarios, its pros and cons. Each group chose a representative who presented the groups’ main conclusions.

Following the groups’ debate about the five scenarios, we’ve invited students from the workshop groups to individually choose the scenario they believed to be the best for the future of the European Union.

During this collective reflection, the students emphasized the importance of European solidarity, namely in response to the pandemic, and its role in reducing socioeconomic asymmetries between member states, but also recognized the need to improve coordination and solidify the European project.

Students stated the importance of bringing the EU closer to European citizens by improving its communication and information initiatives, an effort that must be also undertaken by national governments and civil society, as citizens participation in European affairs is fundamental to improve the EU.

To promote the students’ engagement with the debate about the future of the European project, we’ve shared information about initiatives and instruments that aim to create spaces for European citizens participation, the Conference on the Future of Europe and the European Citizens’ Initiative.

Considering the importance of information in the promotion of active citizenship, The ChangEU WebCourse was presented to participants as an easily accessible resource to understand key facts about Europe’s history, its role and institutions and some initiatives where citizens can participate and contribute to shape its future.

Gallery

2025-11-11
EULECTIONS’19 online workshop with students @ Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal, December, 15, 2020

Students from Universidade de Coimbra joined the EULECTIONS’19 online roadshow to debate the future of Europe on December 15, 2020. This event included two workshops with two groups of participants from the European Affairs course with a total of 28 citizens, including 23 participants from the city of Coimbra, 5 participants from the city of Lisbon.

The workshop started with a brief presentation of the EULECTIONS’19 project by the partners and an overview of the goals and objectives of the session. Following the introduction, we’ve asked the participants to share the first word they associate with the European Union.

The word cloud was formed by words like “union”, “cooperation”, “economy”, “mutual aid”, “multicultural”, “human rights”, “development”, “challenge”, “connection”, reflecting mainly favorable perspectives about the EU. Following this initial brainstorm, we’ve challenged the students to test their knowledge about the history of the European project through a quiz. These first activities aimed to set the floor for the debate about the current state of the EU and its future.

After the quiz results were shared with the participants and commented by students and facilitators, we’ve started the collective reflection about the future of Europe with a short video and a presentation about the “White Paper on the Future of Europe”. In the two workshop sessions, the participants were divided in smaller groups with the task of choosing and debating one of the scenarios and sharing their perspectives. Each group had a facilitator to mediate the discussion.

The conclusions of the group work were presented by the group’s representatives and a debated followed with some comments from the facilitators. The students debated the 5 scenarios, with different perspectives emerging about how to overcome the challenges facing the European project.

For some students it’s important to focus on key areas to improve EU’s performance and therefore “do less more efficiently”, as for others the Union must strengthen its policies and institutions to deliver its current agenda. A third group of opinions was focused on a more ambitious EU that is able to do “much more together” namely, face climate change and health. This discussion was wrapped up with participants choosing, individually, the scenario they would prefer for the future of the European Union, a “citizens’ scenario“.

The group reflection was then oriented towards the relations between European institutions and European citizens namely, what should the EU do to respond to citizens’ needs? what can citizens do to improve the EU? how can the relationship between the EU and its citizens improve?

The students recommended the creation of better communication and participation instruments as well as more debate opportunities about European issues, underscoring the role of citizens in engaging with the institutions through the channels already available. They emphasized the need to continue to involve schools and universities in the discussions and promote a real understanding of what the EU really means.

In order to promote an informed and active citizenship, we’ve challenged participants to take part in the ChangEU Webcourse and share this easily accessible resource with others. We’ve also shared the current initiatives that allow citizens to shape the EU’s policies and the debate about its future namely the European Citizens’ Initiate and the Conference on the Future of Europe.

Gallery

2025-11-11
Want to learn more about the EU?

EULECTIONS’19 has developed an online course about EU’s history, its institutions and the instruments available for citizens’participation. Check the programme.

2025-11-11
Intervention of Ana Isabel Xavier, EULECTIONS’19 coordinator, in the ‘Webinar Parlameter 2020’

Ana Isabel Xavier, CEI-Iscte’s researcher and EULECTIONS’19 coordinator, participated in the ‘Webinar Parlameter 2020: What Europeans think about Europe?’. An event organized by the European Parliament’s office in Portugal, where the data from Parlameter (2020) – an annual Eurobarometer survey that monitors the public opinion on the European Parliament and the EU – were presented and discussed.

Due to the current context, Ana Isabel Xavier highlighted the importance of 2020 edition of Parlameter. It was with some anticipation that this assessment of European citizens regarding the public image and the role of the European Parliament was expected. As well as their feelings towards European identity and citizenship and the hierarchization of policies and values within the European project. In Xavier’s words, the changes that took place since January 2020, namely the generalized focus on national and European responses to Covid-19, the Brexit process already underway, and the new US administration, have demonstrated the importance of the European project in times of instability and uncertainty.

The rest of the intervention was divided into five major points, where different indicators were introduced by the researcher. Among others, Xavier developed some considerations on data that demonstrate a high expectation of European citizens towards EU’s social and economic response to the pandemic; but also spoke about the improvement of respondents’ attitude towards EU’s institutional dimension, with an increase of ten percentage points compared to the 2019 edition.

Watch the full intervention here (in Portuguese, from minute 17).

2025-11-11
The joint declaration ‘Conference on the Future of Europe’ was approved
The initiative on the Conference on the Future of Europe was approved by the Council of the European Union (EU), now under the Portuguese Presidency.

First announced in the end of 2019, this joint declaration of the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission aims to involve citizens in the debate on Europe’s future in the coming decade and beyond, including in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to give citizens a stronger voice, a series of events will be organised by the three institutions, where citizens will have the opportunity to express their views on different issues and areas.

On 10 March, took place the signature of the joint declaration by the Presidents of the European Parliament (David Sassoli), the Council (António Costa) and the European Commission (Ursula Von der Leyen).

You can watch the signing ceremony here.
```
Photo source: Eudebates.tv
```
2025-11-11
European Elections – How did they start?

The next European elections, scheduled for 2024, will be the tenth time that European Union (EU) citizens will be able to cast their votes to choose the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs).

The elections for the EP take place every five years and are the largest transnational elections in the world, with over 400 million voters spread across the current 27 member states.

But how did they start?

The road to the first direct European election in 1979 was a long one. Since 1952, with the foundation of the predecessor to the current EP, the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), and with its political authority to represent citizens “within the newly developing supranational political system of European integration, it seemed self-evident that it should be directly elected”. Direct elections were foreseen as an option both in the Treaty of Paris (1951), which created the ECSC, and in the Treaty of Rome (1957), which founded the European Economic Community (EEC). Nevertheless, until the introduction of direct elections, the Members of the European Parliament, renamed in 1962, “were appointed by each of the Member States’ national parliaments”, at a time when Members had a dual mandate.

In September 1976, 16 years after the first proposal for European elections, the Council of Ministers issued an Electoral Act “concerning the election of the Members of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage” (Salm, 2019). Despite the initial plan that elections would take place in 1978, the act had to be rectified by all Member States, and it was not until June 1979 that the first elections took place (Box, 2021). For the first time, the then 180 million European citizens, had the opportunity to vote on their representatives. Former German Chancellor, Willy Brandt, the leader of the Italian Communist Party, Enrico Berlinguer, and the former French Minister of Health, Simone Veil, were some of the high-ranking politicians that stood for election (Salm, 2019).

With a turnout around 63%, in a universe of 410 parliamentary seats, divided among nine Member States, the election led to the formation of seven political groups. In the beginning of the 1979-1984 legislative period, Socialist Group had the most seats (112 seats, 27,32%), closely followed by the Group of the European People’s Party (108 seats, 26,34%). Simone Veil, a Jewish survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, become “the first President of the first directly elected European Parliament”, constituting as a “symbolic stand against the nationalism that was one of the causes of the First and Second World Wars” (Salm, 2019).

References

Salm, C. (2019). European elections: A historical perspective. European Parliamentary Research Service

Box, U. (2021). The European Parliament: Historical Background. Fact Sheets on the European Union

Europarl (2019). European Parliament: 1979-1984 – Constitutive session. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/election-results-2019/en/european-results/1979-1984/constitutive-session/

Photo “First direct European Elections 1979” via Europal

2025-11-11
Work begins on the Conference on the Future of Europe

After the signature of the joint declaration on 10 March, the work on the Conference on the Future of Europe has officially started. The Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, composed of representatives from the three institutions (European Parliament, Council and Commission), held its constitutive meeting on 24 March in Brussels.

As the Commission’s statement reads: “In this first meeting, the Executive Board agreed on a series of essential items needed to get the Conference started. They took the first steps to ensure that citizens can soon start to contribute to the Conference without delay, in particular on the multilingual Digital Platform, including the Charter for citizen’s participation and the visual identity.”.

As for next steps, the Executive Board will convene again on 7 April in the European Parliament and the Digital Platform will be launched on 19 April.

Read more about it here.

Photo via Europarl

2025-11-11
EULECTIONS’19 workshop with students @ University of Extremadura, April, 12

On 12 April, the workshop “Five Scenarios for the Future of Europe” was promoted in collaboration with Camões I.P. and the University of Extremadura. This workshop was organized after an invitation from a Professor and a class of students of Portuguese language at the University of Extremadura. The event involved 14 citizens, including 9 participants from the city of Badajoz, Extremadura, Spain, and 5 participants from the city of Lisbon, Portugal, having been an extra dissemination event. This hybrid workshop was conducted in a mixed format as part of the group was gathered in person at the university classroom at Extremadura and another part was online from Portugal.

The session started with a brief project presentation by the project partners and an overview of the workshop goals. The first activity was the word cloud formed by the words students’ associate with the European Union. The word cloud included words like union, culture, peace, economy, summits, aid, progress, Council of Europe, multicultural. Following the word cloud we challenged students to test their knowledge about EU’s history through a quiz, introduced by a short video.

After the first two introductory activities, we moved to the key theme of the session, the present and the future of the European project. We’ve introduced the debate with a video and a short presentation with key information about the “White Paper on the Future of Europe – Five Scenarios”. Students were then invited to organize in small groups, choose one of the scenarios and debate its pros and cons, with support from the workshop facilitators.

After the discussion, the groups’ representatives shared their reflection about the scenarios for future of the EU. For one of the groups, scenario 5, represents the utopia they associate with the European Union but they also consider it to be very difficult to achieve as European countries have diverse historical and cultural backgrounds and socioeconomic conditions. This is, according to the group, a great challenge to a more ambitious political union able to do more in more areas. In this case, the group considered that its important to keep the support to the social movements fighting against all forms of discrimination.

Other group of participants considered that Europe could move forward at different speeds, allowing countries that want to do more, to do it. The group also identified some risks in this option, namely the power differential between richer and poorer countries that could block those who wish to do more.

For a third group, the scenario 4, to do more in specific policy fields, would be the most interesting as it would allow the EU institutions to be more efficient in key sectors like the environment and the digital transition, promoting initiatives to reduce emissions and protect citizens’ data privacy

After the group work we’ve proposed students to individually vote on their favourite scenario for the future of the European project.

The next group of workshop activities were focused on the relationship between the EU and European citizens. Students were invited to present suggestions of ways to improve EU’s response to citizens’ needs, bring EU institutions closer to the people and also reflect on how citizens can contribute to the European project.

Participants highlighted the importance of greater economic equality in all European countries, improve citizens’ knowledge about EU’s activities, bring the EU institutions closer to citizens, promoting cultural development and mutual respect.

The third part of the session was focused on motivating participants to continue their involvement with European issues. With this purpose in mind we’ve presented two important EU initiatives, the European Citizens’ Initiative and the Conference on the Future of Europe, that aim to create spaces for European citizens to influence policies and reflect about the future of the European project. Considering the importance of an informed and active citizenship, students were also introduced to the e-learning training course on the European Union, ‘ChangeEU WebCourse’ that covers EU history, institutions and opportunities for citizens participation at the European level.

2025-11-11
20 APR (10AM) | Webinar: Europe for Citizens Programme – Ana Isabel Xavier presents the EULECTIONS’19 experience

On 20 April (10am), Ana Isabel Xavier, CEI-Iscte’s researcher and EULECTIONS’19 coordinator, will participate in the Webinar: Europe for Citizens

In an initiative organised by Europe Direct from the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, in partnership with the Jacques Delors European Information Centre (Lisbon, Portugal), Ana Isabel Xavier will participate in the panel “Good Practices” (starting at 11am), to present the experience in the project “E(U)LECTIONS’19: Think, Decide, Change!”.

This event aims to inform about the implementation of the Europe for Citizens Programme and its perspectives for the future, presenting examples of good practices.

This initiative will take place in the Microsoft Teams platform.

2025-11-11
Conference on the Future of Europe: launch of the multilingual digital platform

The Digital Platform, in the framework of the Conference on the Future of Europe, was officially launched on 19 April.

After the last month was highlighted by the signing of the joint declaration (10/March) and the constitutive meeting (24/March) by the Executive Board of the initiative, it was time for the launch Digital Platform for the Conference on the Future of Europe . Available in 24 languages, the platform is presented as “the hub of the Conference on the Future of Europe”, where EU’s citizens have the “opportunity to speak up, to say what kind of Europe you want to live in, to help shape our future”.

As mentioned in the Commission’s press release, this tool is organized around “key topics: climate change and the environment; health; a stronger and fairer economy; social justice and jobs; EU in the world; values and rights, rule of law, security; digital transformation; European democracy; migration; and education, culture, youth and sport”; also complemented by “an ‘open box’ for cross-cutting and other topics”.

Know more about the Digital Platform here.

Photo via Europal

2025-11-11