While London is slowly turning its back towards Europe, its younger inhabitants have done everything but that. This weekend, forty youth leaders from all over Europe and twenty experts will come together in the city’s Old Theater to work on what they call the “redefinition of the European Mission”. The idea behind it? Making sure that a shattered European Union is heading towards the right direction, and will become once again an attractive project for its citizens.
The 1989 Generation Initiative, as the association organizing the conference calls itself, was founded by LSE students merely a couple of months ago after an inspiring article by Timothy Garton Ash in The Guardian, and is currently based in the university’s European Institute. Just a couple of days before the start of the conference, Campus Europe now had the chance to talk to the association’s president, Michael Cottakis.
Campus Europe: On 26th June you are organizing a conference in London, working on what you call the “redefinition of the European Mission”. How did you come up with this goal?
Michael Cottakis: What we feel is that Europe has lacked a purpose for a very long time. After the war it was quite clear – the idea of Europe was to bring peace, to bring together countries, to ensure that war would never happen again. But up until very recently, this is not been a viable mission.
What we do need now is something slightly different, something that keeps us away from the past, and gives new directions to the European project, beyond this post-war framework. Quite clearly a lot of people have lost trust in the EU. People don’t feel associated, they don’t feel like they are able to help it, they don’t feel like they are a part of it in any way. And so what this is aimed towards is bringing people closer to the EU through a common vision which they can feel part of themselves.
If you talk to a 1989er – one of our generation – and you talk to them about the war, you will see that although it is still important to them, peace in a post-war framework is not something that will enlist the support of many young people today. However noble the idea behind it is. We surely do not want to remove these original values – they are fundamental values – but we do need a redefinition. Something which offers new directions, and new hopes.
CE: But what exactly makes this conference bigger or better than the other ones? There exist numerous Youth Councils, Conferences and Model EPs all over Europe, most of which probably have similar ideas and goals.
MC: Its very important to consider the concept of intergenerationality. The fact that this is not a vision articulated by a group of people in Brussels, old men with white hair. Or by a group of people sitting in a student hall in university. Its articulated by both together, to collaborate a vision. Between generations – those who lead now, and those who will lead in the future, coming up with a common vision for Europe. And this is what is really so fascinating about this project.
You may be aware that the project comes as a response to an article written in the guardian by Timothy Garton Ash, a very eminent man. He said that if Europe is to survive, it is up to the 89er generation to lead the process of pan European reform and of redefinition and articulation of the mission. So also in this sense as well it is quite unique – it comes as a direct response to a challenge written by an academic in a newspaper.
The other thing which takes it beyond simply a conference is that we will be crowdsourcing all over Europe. What will be happening is that we will have some broad proposals which will come out of the conference, which will be send around Europe for critique. And people will have the chance to write what they think about our proposals, make us aware of certain things we might have missed, or propose amendments.
We might be LSE students from London, which is often associated with elitism. But what we want to do is to open this up to as many people as possible. Its a truly collaborative vision, across generations, across Europe, across professions.
CE: Who will be in charge of making the decisions in the end, though? If you have not only the conference itself, but also input from numerous additional participants all over Europe, some tough decisions will be necessary in the end. Who is going to make the final call?
MC: Inevitably that is the role of the organisation and the delegates who take part in the conference. And the delegates are drawn from across Europe, from various backgrounds, all very talented certainly. And they are going to be the ones to decide on the final proposals by majority voting, taking into account the feedback of the crowdsourcing of course.
CE: Before that step, there will be the conference itself on the 26th, which will take merely one day. What exactly will be done on that day?
MC: There will be four different round tables, in each of which we will discuss a different topic. The first round table is for politics and institutions, where we will deal with questions concerning the democratic deficit and the accountability of European institutions. In the second round table, on economic affairs, we will be discussing the Euro crisis and matters related to the EU as a market power. The third one will be discussing the EU’s role in the world – CFSP, enlargement, and the EU as a global actor.
The fourth one is particularly interesting, as we will deal with European identity in it. First of all we will discuss whether a European identity does even exist, and, secondly, if such an identity does exist, how it can be cultivated politically, and how can institutions work to promote policies with a pan European identity nature.
CE: In the end, great ideas are not only about content however, but also need a good communication. How will you make sure that the message you are trying to make is getting across? How can you guarantee that your reform proposals will have an impact?
MC: The good thing about the LSE is that already through the university we have very good contacts in key positions in the media world especially. Timothy Garton Ash himself, who wrote the article that got us started, will be chairing the final round table. He himself is an author in the Guardian newspaper, and will help us to provide a platform to disseminate our work through The Guardian.
And he also opens up doors to other contacts in the media field, some of whom will also attend our conference, debate the outcomes with us, and certainly write about it. So we will be using our existing network of journalists, and also of think tanks, to spread our message.
Next to this we have also made certain partnerships with other organisations, such as the Young European Leadership (YEL) or the Bring Europeans Together Association (BETA), who will certainly provide a platform through their social media. I think that this is a very important way to spread the message. Through partnerships and through social media we can get quite a lot done, and can get a lot out there.
CE: Who is it though you want to reach and influence primarily? Are it the established decision-makers, who are controlling the political outcomes today, or the future ones, those who in 25 years might lead the EU?
MC: It will probably take indeed quite a long time, maybe 25 years, until our current generation is in charge of the leadership positions in Brussels. I think however, as is also stated in the article by Timothy Garton Ash, that the 1989ers should already now be taking the lead in articulating the new direction for the EU and influencing politics.
We certainly see our role as one which is both short term and long term. We want to create a long-term vision for the union, but we want to start implementing it quite soon.
CE: What makes you so confident though about the capabilities of our generation? Up until now, it is still far away from influencing the debate on Europe’s future in a decisive way.
MC: Certainly the people that I have been involved with in this organisation, and the networks that we have created already. They make me very hopeful that the type of process that will be facilitated on Friday will lead to the development of some brilliant ideas, very creative – ideas which can have a ground breaking impact if implemented. We all feel this, that we have this potential.
Our ideas are innovative and strong, so there is no way that over the time it cannot be impactful.
The interview was conducted by Leopold Traugott.
