Almost 50 students met at the School of Transnational Governance’s Palazzo Buontalenti at the end of March to exchange on the future of the European Union. Drawing from the example of the Conference on the Future of Europe’s Panel II, Session III, hosted by the European University Institute in Florence last December, Ponte Europa and the Young EUI Democracy Forum organised a citizens’ forum that engaged with the local youth and voiced their ideas on the future.
The students from the International School of Florence and the Canadian School of Florence spent half a day at Buontalenti to debate the role of the European Union (EU) in the world, the future of democratic participation, and what EU values and identities are to them.
The deliberation among young participants was organised in three sub-panels, which addressed the driving topics and allowed to formulate political recommendations for each. These proposals, collaboratively designed by the students, were then shared in a final plenary debate to facilitate exchange among sub-groups and feedback on the proposals.
“I’m impressed how the discussions are going among the students”, concluded Franca Feisel, EUI Law researcher and Ponte Europa member, who served as facilitator, after the first session. “They seem comfortable sharing personal experiences and relate the topic of EU values and identity to the school, the environment they are most familiar with and where a lot of their lives takes part. So, this is what they are most concerned about and this is also why they will develop a recommendation on to improve education (in the EU).”
The group work sessions ended with the three teams presenting their recommendations to the plenary. The students were actively engaged throughout the activity: “it was really interesting to meet the students from the other schools and hear their views”, “it was fun to get creative” and “I definitely got many new insights about Europe”, were just some of the voices heard at the end of the day.
The teachers were satisfied with the outcome too: “I would like to remark on the beauty of this intellectual exercise for our students, and for us as teachers and professors,” said Professor Gessica Cosi from the Canadian School of Florence. “It was an amazing way to see how our school and also our students are not applying knowledge, but are actually using knowledge to create something new, to generate concepts and ideas."
The aim for this democratic exercise was to propose alternative and more creative models for engaging with young people's opinions on important socio-political issues. A follow-up exercise in the next academic year is already in the planning.