FACTS final conference: At the end of the road, keep going

 On May 20th and 21st 2022, the project From Alternative Narratives to Citizens True EU Stories (FACTS)¹ held its final conference in Barcelona, bringing together citizens and elected representatives from different member states. CIDOB (Spain), IAI (Italy), Eliamep (Greece), WiseEuropa (Poland), DPZ (Germany) and the Open European Dialogue team from the German Marshall Fund of the United States (Brussels office) held a two-day focus group that included 30 citizens and seven elected representatives from national parliaments.

The FACTS project aimed to identify the narratives about the European Union held by mobilised and non-mobilised citizens² and to clarify if these narratives help or hinder the development of a European citizenship or the sense of collective belonging. After conducting the national focus groups, the final conference, which unfolded over two days and explored narratives and attitudes towards the European Union, was a joint exercise involving citizens of different member states, ages, genders and mobilised or non-mobilised statuses, alongside members of parliament who reflected together on past, present and future EU narratives.

Notes:

1-This project has received funding from the European Union’s Europe for Citizens programme under grant decision No. 615563 and the acronym FACTS. Since this publication reflects only the authors’ views, the European Union and its Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency are not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

2- Mobilised citizens are those who show a natural interest for regional, national or European politics, and who are more or less aware of the debates occurring around the world. Non-mobilised citizens are those who have a general knowledge of politics, political activity and political debates, although this does not constitute one of their main daily concerns.