Institut für Europäische Politik IEP – english version

Kick-off workshop of the project “EAO – focus on European politics education 2016–2020”

• April 1, 2016

On 23 and 24 March 2016 the first workshop took place in the ASKO Europa Stiftung in Saarbrücken in the new project “EAO – focus on European politics education 2016–2020”. The project was launched by the ASKO Europa Stiftung (AES) and the Europäische Akademie Otzen­hausen (EAO) in cooper­ation with the Institut für Europäische Politik (IEP). Given an increasing indif­ference towards the European project, partic­u­larly in younger gener­a­tions and a general rise in Euroscep­ticism, the project does not only aim to identify and analyze current and future key issues of European integration but to deduce conclu­sions and connecting factors for political youth and adult education derived from these findings.

Fifteen partic­i­pants from the EAO, the ASKO Europa Stiftung and the Young European Feder­alists (JEF) discussed with repre­sen­ta­tives of the IEP which megatrends of European integration are relevant for the education of the EAO and which ones will be. After a first plenary discussion, key issues were identified and collected in clusters, which were discussed in a World Café in working groups of three tables. However the main focus was generally on the discussion about the current state of education and the work of the EAO in particular. Among other things, it was discussed who can achieve the education and by which methods.

In two further rounds visions for the future of the European Union were discussed in pre-deter­mined topics to answer the question, which relevance these fields will have for the future work of the EAO. The main topics are:

• Europe of sustainability,
• Citizens’ Europe,
• Europe of Freedom,
• Social Europe.

But how can these topics be attached to the political education? And what visions exist for this kind of education?

Based on the results of the workshop the topics and their educa­tional approaches will be discussed in more depth in an inter­dis­ci­plinary and inter­gen­er­a­tional process. This is expected to take place at a future conference in Berlin in May, which will also address the question of visions for the future of Europe.