Green Summer Gathering: Edition 2016 in Belgium

This year’s edition of Les Rencontres Ecologiques d’Eté (Green Summer Gathering) featured many insightful workshops, debates and lectures. Information about the programme and registration is available at Etopia’s website. During this occasion, the Green European Foundation contributed with two special debates about the present and future of the European Union.

The first debate was held on Saturday, the 27th of August, from 09h30 to 10h45. This roundtable addressed the “why EU” question: Why the EU? Is the EU dream over? Why should we keep working hard on it? Does it represent the best way to insure progress in Europe? Special inputs on these matters were provided by professor Tanguy de Wilde (University of Louvain).

Our second debate took place right after – between 10h45 and 12h00, and focused more on “how EU” question in relation to this year’s challenges, such as the situation in Greece, issues with refugee policies and Brexit. How do we re-dynamise the EU project and make it “popular” again? How to tackle and approach this? Should the priority be institutional (more democracy, more transparency)? Should it be economical? Should we create a different approach to some challenges, such as the refugee policies? And how to contain the influence of the lobbies in all this? The list of speakers included:

• Philippe Pochet (European Trade Union Institute);
• Jean Quatremer (Correspondant at Libe à Bxl);
• Jean De munck (Professor of Sociology at UCL);
• Vivien Pertusot (Head of IFRI);
• Philippe Lamberts (Co-President of the Greens/EFA).

Both debates were held with simultaneous translation in French and English. More information about them can be found on this webpage.