Category: Portugal

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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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EULECTIONS’19 workshop @ Agrupamento de Escolas de Arouca, Arouca, Portugal, May, 28, 2020

On May, 28, 2021, EULECTIONS’19 partners joined the Agrupamento de Escolas de Arouca (Arouca school group) and the Associação Círculo Cultura e Democracia ( Association Culture and Democracy Circle ) to debate Europe. The EULECTIONS’19 event was integrated in the programme of the initiative “A nossa voz na Europa” (Our voice in Europe) that involved various activities with students, teachers and members of the community. This was a hybrid event with a part of the participants online and the majority at the school’s auditorium, following the health and security protocols. The event involved 43 citizens from the city of Arouca, Portugal.

During the workshop preparatory activities, in collaboration with the coordinator teacher, students from secondary education classes were introduced to the project theme and to some key documents. This process allowed the group to have a greater familiarity with the questions to be debated during the session and hopefully motivated them to engage with European themes before the next European elections in which most of them will be first time voters.

The workshop started with brief presentations by all the entities involved and an overview of the EULECTIONS’19 project and the workshop. We then invited participants to use their mobile phones and share the first word they associate with the EU and test their knowledge of the history of the European project through an online quiz.

After the word cloud, where “union” took central stage, and a brief overview of EU’s history, we’ve moved to the discussion about its present and future.

The debate was introduced by a video and a short presentation about the “White Paper on the Future of Europe: Five Scenarios” followed by a group work. Participants were invited to organize in small groups, choose one of the five scenarios and reflect about its pros and cons. After the discussion, a representative from each group shared their main conclusions with the audience.

A group of participants considered that scenario 1, carrying on, would be the most suitable as it would ensure financial stability, improve the single market and respond to key strategic challenges in defence, security and the environment. In this scenario some EU challenges would remain unsolved, namely the difficulty to respond to urgent matters and to complex transnational problems due to member states’ diverse perspectives on those matters and some policy areas could be neglected.

Regarding the scenario 2, nothing but the single market, it could contribute to a more efficient market, improving competition and consumer choice but, at the same time, it would put at risk other policy areas that are important to EU citizens and also to the market.

For the participants that reflected on scenario 3, those who want more do more, considered that it could have advantages on policy areas where some states agree that the Union should do more, like employment, research, industrial development, security and defence. In this scenario, the main risk would be the increase of disparities and differences within the Union.

The group of participants that debated scenario 4, doing less more efficiently, concluded that it would be beneficial to achieve more in key policy areas like industry, commerce, security and climate change.

Following the participants’ reflection about the most ambitious scenario, doing much more together, it would transform decision making processes, transferring national decisions to the European level. The Union would also be responsible for citizens rights in various areas. This scenario would have as a key risk, the alienation of national groups that don’t recognize EU’s legitimacy or that don’t agree with increasing EU institutions’ powers.

After the collective reflection, we’ve invited the participants to vote on their individual preferred scenario for the future of Europe.

Following the debate about the scenarios for the future of the EU, the session was focused on ways to improve the relationship between European institutions and European Citizens. We’ve presented 3 questions to participants and invited them to brainstorm on 1) What can the Eu do to respond to its citizens’ needs? 2) What can citizens do to improve the EU? 3) How can we improve the relationship between the EU and European citizens? The suggestions presented were mainly to find ways to improve the union and cooperation between member states, listen to citizens’ perspectives and understand their real needs, provide more information about the Parliament’s discussions, increase opportunities for cooperation with citizens in an active and productive way.

Following the main discussions, we’ve shared with the participants two key EU initiatives through which they can take part in the shaping of the European project, its present and future, the Conference on the Future of Europe and the Citizens’ Initiative. Participants were also invited to keep learning about the EU and citizens’ participation through the ChangEU Webcourse.

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EULECTIONS’19 Online Roadshow @ Portugal – Video

Watch the video of the online roadshow in Portugal. It includes a summary of the different activities that have been carried out over the past year in an online or hybrid format in Lisbon, Azores, Coimbra, Arouca. It also shows the dissemination event promoted with the University of Extremadura, Spain.

You can watch other EULECTIONS’19 videos on Youtube to know more about the project’s activities in Portugal, Italy and the Netherlands.

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EULECTIONS’19 policy paper – Citizens’ perspectives about the future of the EU

EULECTIONS’19 partners have produced a policy paper with key information collected during the project’s events. It summarizes citizens’ perspectives about the future of Europe, the pros and cons of the 5 scenarios and how the EU can improve its relations with Europeans.

About the policy paper

This report presents the main reflections produced by the many participants of different nationalities who, over the last two years, have taken part in the various activities promoted within the framework of this project. In such events, which varied in format over time, they had the opportunity to think about the current state of the European Union, their European citizenship, and to reflect on the future of Europe. Apart from this introductory part, which briefly presents the project, the document is divided into two main parts. In the first, there is a summary of the main pros and cons associated with each scenario of the ‘5 Scenarios for the Future of Europe’ – considerations taken from all the presentations and conversations held in the different countries. In the second part, which is in turn divided into two parts, it is possible to give an account of the main recommendations for the EU on the one hand, and on the other hand, recommendations for the citizens themselves. Both produced throughout the different activities, completed with direct quotes from the participants and the place where those events took place.

Consult the policy paper here.

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Livro sobre os Desafios e Cenários Futuros da UE enquanto Ator de Segurança e Defesa (PT/ENG)

PT | Apresentamos o livro “A União Europeia – Ator de Segurança e Defesa – Desafios Presentes e Cenários Futuros” da autoria da coordenadora do projecto e investigadora Ana Isabel Xavier. Este documento, sobre o desafios presentes e cenários futuros da União Europeia enquanto ator de segurança e defesa, constitui um dos recursos desenvolvidos durante o projeto E(U)LECTIONS’19.

ENG | The book “The European Union – Security and Defence Actor – Present Challenges and Future Scenarios” by the project coordinator and researcher Ana Isabel Xavier. This document, on the present challenges and future scenarios of the European Union as a security and defence actor, constitutes one of the resources developed during the E(U)LECTIONS’19 project.

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