“Schuman 2.0” project Tartu declarations

Over the past Friday and Saturday more than 50 participants, from different walks of life and from every corner of the world, attended that Tartu grass-root event of the “Schuman 2.0” project.

2020 marks the 70th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration, proclaimed by the French Foreign Minister on May 9, 1950. This historical statement has remained in European history as the speech that has launched European integration. Europe Day is thus symbolically celebrated on May 9th.

For this reason, within the framework of the project “Schuman 2.0” – managed by the Union of European Federalists and co-funded by the Europe for Citizens Programme – grass-root events have been organized across Europe to reflect on this fundamental milestone in our continent’s history and to imagine together the future of European integration.

The Tartu session was organized and locally managed by the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies of the University of Tartu, an associated partner of the project.

Along with Tartu, parallel events have taken place in Lille and Trieste and are planned in Bilbao, Graz, and Hamburg. The culminating moment of the project will be the Citizens Summit on Europe Day to be held in Brussels on May 8-9.

The Tartu grass-root event consisted of two days of activities. On Friday, two panel sessions were held to discuss, respectively, the historical context of the declaration and the challenges faced by today’s Europe – featuring both in-house experts and representatives of the civil society.

On February 29, the registered participants, welcomed by Tartu’s Deputy Mayor Raimond Tamm and grouped in teams, spent the most of the day to exchange ideas, address problems, and imagine solutions for the Europe of tomorrow and to draft their own Schuman declaration on the future of Europe.

Eventually, seven declarations on the future of Europe were submitted by the participants! The authors of the best Tartu declaration will be invited to the concluding event of the project in Brussels to present their ideas on the future of Europe at the House of European History on May 8.

The day was concluded with a high-level panel addressing the content of the teams’ declarations. The panel included Kristina Kallas – President of the political party “Estonia200”, Marju Lauristin – former Estonian MEP, Mike Collier – writer and Chief Editor of Latvian Television (LSM) - English News Service, and Paolo Vacca – Secretary General of the Union of European Federalists.

According to Anna Beitane and Stefano Braghiroli – local organizers of the Tartu event – “celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Schuman declaration and its values is fundamental, but not enough. Given the challenges that today’s Europe is facing it is important, especially for the European youth, to embrace the same pioneering spirit that animated the founding fathers seventy years and to be bold and visionary. This is exactly the spirit that animated the discussions on Saturday – to build the Europe of tomorrow. So many inspiring ideas were discussed and we were very impressed by the declarations that were drafted.”

The Tartu declarations developed by the participants’ teams can be accessed at the links below:
Arthur Simonian, Cameron Wiles, Aljaž Roškar, Uliana Buldakova
Emma Prins, Lilly Marciante, Martin Hayford, Gianmarco Riva
Jan Maletz, Nina Briantseva, Boris Varga
Jan Terentjev, Andrei Pankratov, Jaime Delgado, Maria Khrapunenko, and Lisa Churkina
Karin Kallas, Nils-Gregory Aer, Alvaro Casero
Pekka Virkki, Jakub Ruszczyk, Kateryna Vaisero, Jing Guo,, Muath Tezeghdenti
Yuad Jaradat Hamdallah, Andranik Shirinyan, Stela Kasradze, Borche Stamov, Ana Tavartkiladze

More information: Stefano Braghiroli, Associate Professor of European Studies, Programme Director for European Union - Russia Studies, [email protected]