Regretfully, the final meeting of the Erasmus+ Teachers’ Training EUPress project has
come to an end. Here in Timisoara the atmosphere is still full of excitement for the
opportunity to meet again with most adult protagonists of the project, and the Romanian
students that already participated in the Ventotene Summer School last year.
The warm welcome from our friends of Colegiul Tehnic Emanuil Ungureanu, Cristina, Ali,
Dora and all the others from the local team, transformed the expectation of a routine final
meeting of a 3-years project into a genuine experience, made of hard work, convivial
moments, and exciting cultural experiences. It was only a shame that our partners from
Poland could not attend due to bureaucratic and administrative hindrances, but Natalia
could luckily join from remote.
During the last two days we assessed the work done, we commented on the deliverables,
and we evaluated possible future actions together. Meetings with representatives of the
local University, Europe Direct and the Intercultural Institute of Timisoara enriched the
debate and potential further connections.
The sense that Europe is at a dramatic crossroad in its existence was widespread, as well
as the preoccupation deriving from the fact that, being a still ongoing project, European
integration does not yet have all the instrument to face the many challenges that we as
Europeans and the whole world are facing. With the resurgence of armed conflicts, trade
wars, weaponization of currencies, the resurgence of illusionary nationalistic temptations,
the inability for Europe to act as a global actor.
We are all proud of having provided teachers and students with a few instruments to
increase their awareness of the process in which we are, of its success stories and of its
failures, helping educate citizens that may actively participate in the decision-making
processes at each layer of their democratic life, from the local to national, European and
even global dimension.
But now that such citizens are ready to make informed collective choices, they also know
that what is still missing is efficient collective institutions, and democratic decision-making
mechanisms, especially at the supranational level. We therefore left with the will to
struggle further for the European values, with new endeavors together, trying to extend
and upscale what we have been doing in the last three years, so that the legacy of this
project may not be lost, and actually become the groundwork for further joint actions to
defend and improve the European democracy.
This is not (just) the end of a three-years journey. It is a step in a longer journey through
active civic participation at multiple dimensions, that we are committed to make last
forever.
