European elections 2024: To keep our future in our hands, we need the Revolution of Hope1

Abstract

Imagine walking down the street, stopping a random person and asking them what they think about Europe. In the early 1950s, a TV crew did exactly that and an elderly farm woman replied: ‘Well, if it's for Peace, it's fine’. Sixty years later, an elderly Ukrainian woman was asked the same question. We are in the weeks of the ‘Revolution of Dignity’ happening in Kyiv in 2014. She proudly shows a huge expanse of wheat, saying that, thanks to it, the whole of Europe would be fed. Yet, the gentleness with which the word “Europe” was pronounced does not seem so common in the EU anymore.

In the public debate, “Europe” is often mentioned in relation to bad news, contradictions or, at best, major global problems to be tackled. Yet, in recent years, this “Europe” has meant so much when we needed solidarity during the pandemic and coordinated action to face war and climate crisis. This is why, during the 2024 European elections, Europe will be in a drastically different situation than it was five years before. Shaken by those crises and challenges, European society stands at a historical crossroads. We face an increasing number of forces that amplify division, fear and interference acting more and more powerfully against European unity and solidarity. Can we let them proceed without countering those developments? For now, our destiny lies in our hands, but will it tomorrow?

The top three values that Europe should defend, according to a Eurobarometer survey, are democracy, human rights and freedom of speech. However, with the free exchange of ideas comes the danger of disinformation. In a Council of Europe survey, 82% of respondents cited ‘fake news’ as a major concern and a threat to democracy. This is not a new phenomenon, as we have seen foreign interference have an impact on electoral campaigns in Europe and the United States, specifically in 2016 but also more recently.

Since the Second World War, democracy, freedom of movement and speech, economic growth and cultural exchanges, but also friendship and love, are springing up where armies once passed. Yet, there is a possibility that many Europeans find it hard to see all this, to notice that the European Union is an aspirational point of reference for many people in the region. We are the continent with the biggest economic market, with the most comprehensive welfare system; the safest, from every point of view, and all this thanks to this unique political project.

Europe was born on the frontier between states used to fighting wars against each other, which have decided to tear down barriers, face their past and look towards the future with confidence. In fact, paraphrasing the sociologist Abdelmalek Sayad, what happens at the frontiers of a community is a mirror of ‘the deepest contradictions of a society, its political organisation and its relations with other societies’. Those frontiers that once passed through Verdun and the Somme today lie elsewhere, from Cutro to Kyiv. Without forgetting those frontiers between winners and losers of an insufficiently regulated globalisation, often marked by economic centres and European peripheries, the living contradictions that define the new ‘frontiers’ need to be tackled to rediscover the original goal and spirit of the European project.

According to Eurobarometer, the predominant feelings among Europeans are, in order, uncertainty, frustration, helplessness, anger and fear—all feeding into division on the continent Yet, there is a glimmer of light that can be spotted. For more than one in three Europeans, that feeling is instead Hope. Not a hope made of empty, dreamy waiting, but an active, purposeful Hope, the hope that brings so many Europeans, inside and outside of the EU, to keep fighting for European values even if it means risking their lives. Europe must be up to the task of this hope of freedom.

This is why, one year before crucial elections on our continent, in the face of so many forces that try to build momentum on negative emotions and divisions, we want to build an alternative front, capable of proposing a different way forward, a concrete one to transform and revitalise Europe and its democracy.

The way starts with listening to those who will carry the weight of the future on their shoulders: young Europeans. In the age of social media, young citizens are particularly exposed to disinformation and have been heavily impacted by recent events such as the pandemic, war, inflation and climate anxiety. We aim to strengthen the positive dialogue between young citizens, across borders, across language barriers—in all their diversity. We will recentre the political debate on young people's priorities to rebuild trust, and also to create more ownership and to put their priorities for the future of Europe at the heart of the 2024 campaign, replacing the agenda of fear and division with their ‘Agenda of Hope’.

This is how Europe and Hope will have the same sound again: EurHope. Today, we call all young citizens, all civil society members, all Member States, cities and regions and all engaged organisations to join the Revolution of Hope!

List of signatories

Gian Paolo ACCARDO, Founder and Chief editor of VOXEUROP

Alberto ALEMANNO, Jean Monnet Professor at HEC Paris, founder of The Good Lobby

Antonio ARGENZIANO, President of JEF

Frédéric BAILLY, Executive Vice President at the SOS Group, Secretary general of Alliance Pact for Impact

Mikuláš BEK, Minister for European Affairs of the Czech Republic

Brando BENIFEI, Member of the European Parliament

Laurent BERGER, General Secretary of the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (CFDT), President of the European Trade Union Confederation

Gabriele BISCHOFF, Member of the European Parliament

Jean Marc BORELLO, Founder and president of Groupe SOS

Damian BOESELAGER, Member of the European Parliament

Gilbert BOURSEUL, CEO of TOPICS

Maroua BOUZAIDA, Vice President of Toulouse Métropole, responsible for citizen participation

Mercedes BRESSO, Member of the European Parliament, former President of the European Committee of Regions

Jeanne BRETÉCHER, President of Social Good Accelerator

Flavio BRUGNOLI, Director Centro Studi sul Federalismo

Pascal CANFIN, Member of the European Parliament, Chair of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety

Marco CAPPATO, President of EUMANS, former member of the European Parliament

Daniel COHN-BENDIT, Former Member of the European Parliament

Fabio COLASANTI, Former Director General of the European Commission

Alicia COMBAZ, CEO of Make.org

Olivier COSTA, Researcher at CNRS, Professor at the College of Europe

Axel DAUCHEZ, President of Make.org

Pier Virgilio DASTOLI, President of the Italian European Mouvement

Valerie DECAMP, Executive Director of Mediatransports

Tremeur DENIGOT, Co-President of CIVICO Europa

Adrien DUGUET, President of the Association Civic Tech Europe

Eva EISLER, Professor, designer and artist

Virginia FIUME, Co-President of EUMANS

Cynthia FLEURY, Philosopher and psychoanalyst

Daniel FREUND, Member of the European Parliament

Martial FOUCAULT, Director of CEVIPOF

Malte GALLÉE, Member of the European Parliament

Sandro GOZI, Member of the European Parliament, President of UEF

Patrizia HEIDEGGER, Deputy Secretary General of the European Environmental Bureau

Veera HEINONEN, Director, Democracy and participation, the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra

Gergely KARÁCSONY, Mayor of Budapest

Guillaume KLOSSA, Co-President of CIVICO Europa, Founder of Europa Nova

Luca JAHIER, Vice President of the European Semester Group, former President of the European Economic and Social Committee

Benedek JÁVOR, Former Member of the European Parliament

Zora JAUROVA, Producer, dramaturge, cultural politics and creative industry expert

Christophe LECLERCQ, Founder of EURACTIV Media Network and of Europe's MediaLab

Nathalie LOISEAU, Member of the European Parliament, former French Minister of European Affairs

Biliana KOTSAKOVA, Lawyer, human rights defender

Robert MENASSE, Writer

Mario MONTI, Member of the Italian Senate, former Prime Minister of Italy, former European Commissioner

Isabelle NÉGRIER, Director General of EuropaNova

Ignacy NIEMCZYCKI, President of the Board of the Bronislaw Geremek Foundation

Elisabetta OLIVI, former spokesperson of the European Commission and former spokesperson of the Italian government

Bertrand PANCHER, Member of the French National Assembly, President of ‘Décider ensemble’

Clemence PÈNE, Vice-President of ‘A Voté’

Andrey KOVATCHEV, Member of the European Parliament and President of UEF Bulgaria

Tsvetelina PENKOVA, Member of the European Parliament

Francesca RATTI, Former Deputy Secretary general of the European Parliament

María RODRÍGUEZ ALCÁZAR, President of the European Youth Forum

Domènec RUIZ DEVESA, Member of the European Parliament

Jacques RUPNIK, Emeritus Research Director, Sciences Po, former adviser of Václav Havel

Emma SMETANA, Artist, performer, journalist

Claus Haugaard SORENSEN, Chairman of the Global Executive Leadership initiative, former Director general of the European Commission

Nathalie TOCCI, Director at the Istituto Affari Internazionali

Inga WACHSMANN, President of Citizens for Europe

Slavoj ŽIŽEK, Philosopher