European Public Sphere Blog
Impressions, reports and thoughts of the European Public Sphere team
TREAT YOURSELF TO DEMOCRACY – field report
Cologne | As part of the European public sphere project TREAT YOURSELF TO DEMOCRACY we visited the Don-Bosco club in the culturally diverse district of Müllheim, Cologne on 10 September. The idea behind the project is to motivate first-time voters to participate in...
More playgrounds and sports fields, clean school toilets and faster internet
Cologne | Students from Cologne-Mülheim have very concrete ideas about what they would like to change at their school, in their district and in the country. As part of the TREAT YOURSELF TO DEMOCRACY project, representatives of Mehr Demokratie NRW, the Verband...
The Europe Dome travels throughout Europe. It is the aim of our initiative that all interested people can participate in the talks.
A European Public Sphere needs both: concrete encounters between the citizens and the opportunity to hear about the results of their exchange.
In this blog, the team members of the European Public Sphere initiative talk about the Dome Talks, about the development of our initiative or share other thoughts on Europe.
Europe 2.0 – Your future, your turn to design it! 🇪🇺
👉 The European Public Sphere - Europe 2.0 creates an open laboratory for Europe’s future questions. And these should be answered by those who will have to live with the ideas: young Europeans such as yourself. 💡Together with you, we want to develop...
Virtual Public Sphere
Europe | On Monday the 11th of May, in honor of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights turning 20 years old, we held our first online Public Sphere event discussing the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. As part of the Connect Europe project with 7 civil society...
Together instead of one upon the other – The day of action ‘Northern City’ in Hildesheim
Hildesheim | The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress. – Joseph Joubert (1754 - 1824), French moralist. Our intern Katharina Brauckmann shares her thoughts on 2019's last Dome Event! The aim of a discussion should not be...
Kirchentag 2019
Dortmund | Every two years Church Day puts the city under its spell. More than 100,000 people of all ages, religions and backgrounds come together to reflect and discuss on the issues of our time. Of course, the European Public Sphere was also involved! A report by...
(En)Vision Tempelhof
Berlin | We could of course not let the long way back from Poland go uneventlessly. And so it came that we included another stop in Berlin. This was made possible by the cooperation with Tempelhofer Feld Vision (THF Vision). In line with the activities of the...
Krakow – It’s getting hot in here
Krakow | Krakow, June 12th, was the last stop of our Poland Tour. The day before we made our way back south from the far north near Gdansk. Again and again we had picked up one thing in passing by: It was to be the hottest day in Gdansk ever measured that early in a...
Youth for Baltic Sea
Sobieszewo (Gdánsk) | Our second stop of our Poland Tour was at Hotel Orle on Sobieszewo island just outside of Gdańsk. Supported by GLS Treuhand e.V., we joined the first Baltic Sea Youth Camp, a festival to increase youth participation in the Baltic Sea Region....
Krzyżowa – Authoring European History
Krzyżowa | Our stop in Krzyżowa was a very special one to me. 3 years ago still as a student, I had taken part in a workshop to create a multi-media guide for the outdoor exhibition "Mut und Versöhnung" (courage and reconciliation) with 5 other Polish and German...
Luxembourg – Naturally Celebrating Diversity
Luxembourg|Our second stop in Luxembourg, and also the final stop of the BeNeLux-Tour, took place in Luxembourg City. There, we built our dome on the Place de Clairefontaine, in close walking distance from many of the city’s sights, like the Palace, the Parliament...
Schengen – Borderless Europe
Schengen| With the two stops in Luxembourg, the BeNeLux-Tour of the European Public Sphere was slowly coming to an end. But it was not over yet. Both Schengen and Luxembourg City were vital stops for our Dome Talks and delivered with vibrant discussions. Our intern...
Zandvoort – While the wind blows, the discussion flows
Zandvoort| The last stop of the Europe Dome in the Netherlands was on the beach! The small town of Zandvoort is located right at the sea and is home to several beautiful and “gezellige” beach tents. One of them, Paviljoen Jeroen, hosted our European Public Sphere...
A two level game: The Hague talks outside and inside the Dome
Den Haag| On 13 April 2019 we held our talks at our second-to last stop in the Netherlands, at the Leyweg shopping centre in The Hague. Not only was the weather exciting, also our Dome Talks came in a slightly different form. In The Hague, the European Public Sphere...
Amsterdam – Food for Thought
Amsterdam| On the 12th of April, the Europe Dome visited the multicultural city of Amsterdam. Right in the middle of the Passage in De Hallen, a bustling centre for culture and craftsmanship, the Europe Dome invited everyone to join in discussions on citizen...
Texel – Make the Fire of Democracy Blaze Again
Den Burg, Texel| My name is David Reich. As an intern, I joined the BeNeLux Tour in Belgium and the Netherlands in April this year. The first destination in the Netherlands for me personally (the others already had a stop before in Maastricht) was in beautiful Texel,...
Back to Maastricht of the 1300s
Maastricht |Have you ever felt like being in a beautiful safe space? A little part of the world where you can come and just talk with people without being judged or corrected. Where you look around and see, just outside your cocoon, a wonderful surrounding. And you...
Gent – A Day in the Life of the Europe Dome team
Gent| Dome events are fun. But to make them fun, a lot of tasks need to be taken care of before, during and after the talks. Follow the organisers through their daily (non-)routine during the BeNeLux Tour and get to know another side of beautiful Gent.The dome day...
Antwerp – Give the young people a voice and stage, we need them more than ever
Antwerp| The next stop marked on our Benelux map was Antwerp - a beautiful port city located in the Flemish region. At Groenplaats, in the heart of the city, we had two talks on Citizen Participation and Climate Change. Here, David Reich describes his experiences in...
Brussels – Studying Citizen Participation and Sustainability
Brussels| In the capital of Europe we held our second dome talk in Belgium. In the light of the upcoming European elections we visited the future academics of Europe - the students of the University of Brussels. Brussels is the city of diversity with 3 languages...
Liège – Democracy for Sale! Or not?
Liège| The first stop of the BeNeLux Tour of the European Public Sphere project was the 30th of March in Liège. We erected the Europe Dome in shopping centre Mediacité and held three talks on digital democracy, integration and the new European Parliament! Enjoy a...
Extend the Sensors to the West and South
In our Austria-Tour we still have one more stop to do. On 16 October we will rebuild the Dome for an "inclusive Dome Talk" - in Vienna, where the opening event also took place in July. In the meantime, however, we were on our way - with a detour to South Tyrol - in...
When the Dome res(is)ted
Manheim, Germany | Hambach Forest, 18 August, 2018: On the occasion of the camp for [future] 2018, the Europe Dome is put together in the baking heat. Around 17.30 about 120 young activists are approaching the resistance acre of the BUND NRW via the steppe-like...
Summiteers: What does Europe need the Alps for?
Henar Mountain Pasture | From 13 to 16 August, the European Public Sphere-Dome stood on the Henar mountain pasture between the peaks of the so-called Dead Mountains. This stop in the border region of Styria and Upper Austria is part of our tour on the occasion of the...
Kick-off in Austria
Vienna, Austria | Austria is holding the Presidency of the Council of the European Union for six months starting 1 July. The European Public Sphere is taking up this occasion by planning a small series of Dome-Events throughout Austria over the next few months. For...
What’s your vision of Europe?
Kick-off of the Austria-Tour on 6 July With the beginning of the second half of the year Austria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. Ines Kanka has written a small report for the magazine "Wegweiser Anthroposophie" (Guidepost...
What are the forces of judgement for Europe’s future?
Herzogenrath, Germany | On Sunday the NRW Tour of the European Public Sphere led to Herzogenrath. As part of the Realize Festival 2018 we set up the Europe Dome in the youth centre HOT. The topic was "Youth and Europe" and we discussed with six pupils of the Europe...
Rethinking Social Justice in Europe
Witten, Germany | Last Friday, the fifth Dome Talk of the North Rhine-Westphalia Tour took place in Witten, Germany, organized by Mehr Demokratie within the framework of the European Public Sphere Project. The topic "Rethinking Social Justice in Europe" was...
Time is running out with the European elections calling
Bonn, Münster, Düsseldorf, Wesel... The list of cities in which we have already built up our wooden dome within the European Public Sphere Tour through NRW is constantly growing. And on Saturday, 26.05.2018, we added another one. This time in a small group, we set of...
Man and mouse under Düsseldorf-dome
Düsseldorf, Germany | On the occasion of the annual March against Monsanto on 19 May the dome travelled to Düsseldorf. It was in good company on the grass-covered Graf-Adolf-Platz: with the Monsanto high-rise as a scenery, it was surrounded by stands of...
European Public Sphere goes Münster
Münster, Germany | As part of its NRW tour, the dome came to Münster on 11 May. Not only the continuing good weather, but also the Catholic Day encouraged a lively participation of different organizations’ invited representatives, but above all for keen-to-discuss...
Kick-off of the NRW-Tour in Bonn
Bonn, Germany | On May 5th it finally happened: the first event of the NRW tour of the European Public Sphere took place in Bonn. This time the wooden dome was set up on the Münsterplatz in Bonn's city centre, where a major sporting event in bright sunshine and...
Am I the only one who remembers the man from San Sebastian?
Donostia- San Sebastiàn, Spain (Basque country) | In April in one of our first Dome Talks organized from the distance, we could draw a surprising picture and work on our state of relaxation! Seeming to have made similar experiences, San Sebastiàn now in the words of...
Dome-Talk with Europe-Activists in Vienna
Vienna, Austria | On 1 October 2017, the European Public Sphere took place in the center of Vienna at Karlsplatz with the Karlskirche as its scenery. The Dome-Talk started after a Pulse of Europe rally, whose comrades-in-arms were invited together with other European...
First Dome Talk at Democracy Camp in Wels
The "European Public Sphere" project had its premiere on 29 September 2017. As part of the "More Democracy Camp" in Wels/Austria, we built our Europe Dome in the cultural center “Alter Schlachthof” in Wels and organized a dome talk on the topic “Democracy in...
Start of the project “European Public Sphere”
At the end of September the time had come: The European Public Sphere Project’s first dome talk took place. Gerhard Schuster, co-founder of the European Public Sphere, explains how this initiative came to life and what it is about. A few days before our double...