IV. Summary
The transnational project "The Future of Europe - Our opinion Counts" aimed at introducing a broad public debate on the future of Europe by informing the citizens of the countries involved on the new challenges of an enlarged common Europe. It was realised with the financial support of the European Commission within the PRINCE program “Debate on the future of Europe 2002”.
The project was elaborated and carried out by three member states of the European Union (Austria, Greece and Italy) and seven applicant countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia).
The project
consisted in organising public competitions and workshops and in carrying
out a survey on the future of Europe in order to encourage a public
discussion on Europe's future with the aim promoting a
Central European Declaration
on the Future of Europe.
The Declaration was elaborated on the basis of the final conference in Vienna from March the 28th until March 29th 2003 in the Viennese City-Hall. During the conference young people from all participating countries have attended a simulation game on the Constitutional Convention, also in the premises of the Viennese City-Hall from March 27th until March 28th 2003.
To guarantee a public debate close to the citizens, public actions within the framework of the Europe Day 2003 completed the project.
The project started in October 2002 (28th of October) with a partner meeting in Vienna in the venue of the Info Point Europe Vienna. At this meeting the project partners were informed of the single activities and received a guideline on organisational aspects in order to simplify the co-operation between 10 partner countries (planned period of the activities, aims of the activities including suggested topics, number of participants etc, budgetary details...) as well as to keep the time schedule of the project. A first draft of the common project website www.citizens.eu.org the promotional material and the call for proposals of the public competition was presented by the project co-ordinator. Furthermore the final version of the questionnaire for the survey on the future of Europe was elaborated. A draft version was introduced by the Austrian Society for European Politics.
The co-operation with the partner countries worked very well although the co-ordination with the partners mostly took place just via email and telephone contact. All activities were carried out in the foreseen periods except the study visit for the national winners of the public competition which had to be prolonged as the main part of the winners were students and pupils. For them it was not possible to join the study visit planned for June due to final exams. This is why the project activities ended on the 13th of July 2003. A detailed overview on the project period can be seen on the diagram on page 3.
Last but not least the number of persons reached by this project is estimated as follows:
* direct contact with approximately 8000 people through the single project activities could be established (100 people through the public competition, 300 interviewed people through the survey, 400 people through the workshops, 200 people through the Vienna conference and 8000 people via the information stands of the public action within the framework of the Europe Day 2003)
* approximately 25.000 people were reached indirectly through the promotion material of the project (free cards, posters, leaflet and via internet with almost 8000 hits) plus an additional number of people who will receive final report.
* even high above of this level and not difficult to estimate was the number of people reached through media co-operation (e.g. in Austria the nationwide daily newspaper “Kurier” announced and reported project activities) and publications of the project partners (e.g. in Austria the special edition of the business magazine “Gewinn” (Eurogewinn) – number of copies 20.000).
Having in mind this number of people reached by the transnational project “The Future of Europe – Our Opinion Counts” it can be stated that the main aim to generate a fundamental contribution to the debate of the future of Europe has been achieved.
Finally it should be pointed out that without the personal engagement and the excellent co-operation of the project partners on the one hand and the financial support of the European Commission on the other hand, this project would not have been carried out thus successful.
