Dear federalist
friends,
We are happy to invite you again to a series of timely and
interesting events in the framework of our two ongoing projects:
Moreover, as a partner
of JEF Europe in the Y-FED project, we would
also like to flag you the Y-FED Large-Scale Model Simulation.
Please, find below the details of each event and project. You are all
invited to attend!
Warm federalist regards,
UEF Secretariat
Register here
IMAGINING THE FUTURE OF EUROPE: PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY IN THE EUROPEAN UNION
In which Europe would you like to live in 10 or 20 years’ time?
The Conference on the Future of Europe will begin on May 9, Europe Day, to define the direction that the European Union should take.
Citizens and civil society will be able to give their opinion on the Europe they want and thus contribute to shaping its future in the medium and long term through a participatory forum.
UEF and Xul Foundation invite you to participate in this process with Crossroads Europe, a European funded project, to collect proposals and opinions on the Europe we want in the field of participatory democracy and representation. These contributions will be collected in a document of policy recommendations to be submitted to the Conference on the Future of Europe.
If you want to get involved and contribute, if you wonder how to develop participatory processes in times of pandemic, if you want to broaden your knowledge on citizen participation, if you want to contribute to the construction of Europe and to give your opinion on the challenges it faces and its future, we are counting on you. Do you want to rethink Europe with us? We have planned a series of virtual workshops that will take place ONLINE on April 20 and 21, 2021.
Register here
2021 marks the 30th anniversary of the return to freedom and democracy to Central and Eastern Europe and of Estonia’s restoration of independence.
The project “Democracy is Europe” aims to raise awareness on the centrality of the European ideals in the transitions and peaceful revolutions of 1989-1991 in Central and Eastern Europe and the Baltic States and to encourage debate and reflection on the impact of such ideas in today’s Europe.
The Estonian session of “Democracy is Europe” is organized in cooperation with and locally managed by the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies of the University of Tartu.
The Estonian grass-root event consists of two days of activities. On April 23, two panel sessions will be held to discuss the historical context of Estonia’s Singing Revolution and its significance for nations struggling for democracy and freedom nowadays. The panels will be open to everyone interested. On April 24, the registered participants, grouped in virtual teams, will work on different creative projects that capture the significance of Estonia’s experience for today’s Europe and its fundamental contribution to the process of integration. The day will be concluded by a keynote speech of Visiting Prof. Toomas Hendrik Ilves, former president of Estonia (2006-2016).
The full programme of the event is available at the following link and the Facebook event can be found here. Registration is REQUIRED to participate in the event and is available at the following link (open until April 22).
Register here
Y-FED
The project “Y-FED: Europe is what we make of it” aims to bring the EU closer
to its young citizens by developing a proposal for an improved institutional
framework of the Union in line with the European Youth Goals. The initiative,
supported by an Erasmus+ “European Youth Together” grant, will be implemented
between January 2020 and July 2021 through a series of capacity-building
training courses, public policy hackathons, a large-scale simulation of a
reformed EU and advocacy actions. The project partners comprise 18 civil
society organisations as well as 2 networks of European and regional
decision-makers.
About the Large-scale Model Simulation, 14 – 19 June, 2021
The large-scale simulation is the main event of the nearly 2 years long project “Y-FED: Europe is what we make of it” that will gather more than 100 young people from all over Europe in an online and physical environment for 5 days.
As the cherry on the top, the model simulation is none like any other simulations out there (MUNs, MEUs). It follows its own methodology recreating a European Union of the future that is more youth-led, more inclusive, more efficient and closer to its citizens. The model is inspired by the first edition of Y-FED in 2019 and the hackathon solutions based on the European Youth goals. The event is going to be a blended activity with an online and offline (in Strasbourg, France) settings and the current call is for the participants who will join the event physically in Strasbourg under the roles of members of “The House of Citizens” and “The European Senate”. For the rest of the roles who will through online participation, there will be a call launched in May. The goal will be to create a synergy between the participants in Strasbourg under the 2 roles of members of “The House of Citizens” and “The European Senate” and the journalists, lobbyists and citizens who will join online.