One of the goals of the Transeuropa Caravan project was to engage with citizens and organisations and find out more about their views on the European Union and how do they think that Europe should be like in the near future. With this in mind, during the Western Caravan’s stop in A Coruña, a city in the North of Spain, we took the opportunity to discuss with citizens visiting Marea Atlántica’s campaign event for the local elections about the kind of Europe they dream of.
After a brainstorming on what would be the ideal Europe like, the participants of the discussion came up with three main dimensions: they want a Solidarity and Responsible Europe, a Green Europe and a Feminist Europe. Based on these goals, we focused on coming up with solutions and proposals that we, as citizens, can do in our daily lives in order to be part of the change we want to see in society. Even if the European Union is often perceived as a project distanced from its citizens and even if Marea Atlántica for now mostly focuses on local politics, the outcome of the discussion proved that there are in fact small but significant day-to-day decisions and measures that we can take as citizens that can have an impact in contributing to a better Europe.
Find below their proposals:
1. A more responsible and solidarity-oriented Europe
- To connect causes and fights across Europe
- To make sure our cities welcome as many refugees as possible, by supporting collectives and organisations fighting refugees’ rights or by voting parties more sensitive towards the issue of integration
- To advocate for more citizenship, sociology and philosophy lessons for students in schools
- To invite and encourage minority collectives to actively participate in more public events and activities, such as for example older generations
- To be more aware of what and how we consume, such as for instance buying less products onlin
2. A greener and more eco-friendly Europe
- To consume products from local businesses and farms
- To be part of environmentalist groups and collectives
- To plant more plants and trees
- To advocate for more eco-friendly forms of energy, such as solar energy
- To reuse and recycle as much as possible, especially plastics
- To consume less meat
- To avoid using car and instead use bike and public transport more often
- To go on holidays to places where you can avoid taking planes
3. A feminist Europe guaranteeing gender equality
- To counter verbal sexism in our daily lives
- To vote for female political candidates to increase their representation in the government
- To promote diverse masculine models
- To deconstruct established gender roles
We would like to thank the participants of our workshop in A Coruña for their motivation and excellent ideas and we would also like to encourage citizens elsewhere in Europe to reflect on what can they do in their daily lives to work for a better Europe!