Once upon a lockdown time, five AEGEEans asked themselves the question: ”Where Does Europe End?”. It was then that they decided to dive into this journey by reviving and old AEGEE-Europe project: Where Does Europe End? 2.0 had been born as an independent AEGEE project.
About the project
Some history
The first iteration of the project was originally the brainchild of Percin Imrek from AEGEE-Canakkale and was run from 2008 to 2011 as an AEGEE-Europe project.
The following 3 main aims were adapted:
– Examine and envision the future European Identity
– Triggering interest and stimulating debate about Europe amongst young people.
– Empowering and encouraging young people to be active in European society
Through these aims, the project aimed to examine the physical and mental borders of Europe in people’s perception and many different types of events were organised, ranging from online surveys to multi-day conferences about various topics related to the main aims. The project was carried out under the honorary patronage of former European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek and the cabinet of José Manuel Barroso. In the end, this project showed once again that it is impossible to draw an exact line where Europe ends. Even more, the view on the things that make a country “European” vary widely between people from different regions, age groups and many other factors. In the years since the first project ended a lot of changes have taken place, both inside and outside of Europe, such as Brexit, migration crisis, armed conflicts in disputed areas, rise of populism and one may even say that democracy as a system has been challenged in certain countries. This has led us, as a project team, to ask the question: ”What is Europe now?”. This has naturally led to this plan in front of you for a next edition of Where Does Europe End.