AEGEE Europe and Fraternite 2020

Dear AEGEEans,

On the 11th of July 2012 AEGEE-Europe was invited to attend as one of the Speakers a Press Conference at the European Parliament in Brussels, to give public support to the project of Fraternite 2020,  inside the frame of European Citizens’ Initiative of the European Commission.

The Comité Directeur and AEGEE-Europe were this time represented by Luis Alvarado Martinez, who clearly expressed AEGE-Europe’s full support for initiatives that, like Fraternite 2020, commute to European mobility.

Among other Speaker present, there were:

–       Members of the European Parliament (MEP) Gerald Häfner (Greens, Germany), Róża Thun (EPP, Poland) and Kinga Göncz (S & D, Hungary).

–       Emanuel Alfranseder (new President of Erasmus Student Network).

Lear more about the initiative here:

Fraternite 2020 in a nutshell

A EUROPE FOR CITIZENS…

For us mobility lies at the heart of the European project! By giving more EU citizens the opportunity to spend time in another member state, we give them a better chance to ‘broaden their horizons’ and develop a European identity. Specifically, we ask for three measures to ensure that the EU opens up more stringent opportunities for citizens to go abroad and experience Europe first-hand:

• Making more funds available for EU exchange programmes.
• Making sure programmes develop more skills among participants.
• Tracking progress in the field of mobility through better monitoring.

We believe that the EU needs to re-focus its integration efforts on the level of individual European citizens to build a genuine European union of people, not states. This would also lead to positive economic, social, and cultural effects. Especially, increasing mobility promises to spur economic growth and to bring down unemployment rates across Europe, particularly in the age group 18 to 26 which is especially hard hit by the current economic crisis.

Since the very beginning AEGEE -Europe has supported this initiative and will continue to do so as it strives for the same vision of Unified Europe as AEGEE.

For more information check out their website: http://en.fraternite2020.eu/summary.html

Written by  Luis Alvarado Martínez, AEGEE-Las Palmas

Photographs from  the Office of Róża, Gräfin von Thun und Hohenstein