The 28 Member States and their citizens are the heart of the European Union (EU). The unique feature of the EU is that all these states remain sovereign and independent, but bundle some of their sovereign powers in areas where cooperation is meaningful. This partial transfer of powers to institutions, which the Member States themselves have created, means in practice that decisions on specific issues of common interest can be taken democratically at European level (http://publications.europa.eu/webpub/com/). The EU's goals include promoting peace, European values and the well-being of its citizens; freedom, security and the rule of law without internal borders; halting social injustice and discrimination, respect for their rich cultural and linguistic diversity. All EU Member States share the values of the EU: they seek a society in which inclusion, tolerance, the rule of law, solidarity and non-discrimination are a matter of course. These values shape our European lifestyle: human dignity, freedom, democracy, gender equality, the rule of law and human rights (https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/eu-in-brief_en). However, EU expert Pascal Fontaine, former assistant to Jean Monnet and a professor at the Institut d'Études Politiques, discusses in the edition of his booklet "Europe in 12 Lessons", among others. following question: What has the EU already achieved for its citizens and what is its task today? In the age of globalization, can the EU successfully compete with other major economies while preserving its social standards? What role will Europe play on the world stage in the coming years? Where will the borders of the EU go? And what does the future of the Euro look like? (Https://publications.europa.eu/de/publication-detail/-/publication/2d85274b-0093-4e38-896a-12518d629057). At this point, the intension of this application takes up: "How important is Europe for young people?", "What are the expectations of young people to future Europe?", "What demands does future Europe place on young people in the future?". The schools involved in the application have been forming an international school network for many years, the Committee Europe (www.committee-europe.eu). This alliance is based on the idea of bringing together pupils from as many European countries as possible, for mutual cultural exchange, to eliminate prejudices and to convey the idea of European "citizenship". This takes place annually in workshops at three different locations on specific topics, e.g. sports, music, art, politics, economics or science. The proposed project focuses on the "European idea", i.g. the perspectives (cultural, social, economic) that Europe has for young people between the ages of 13 and 16. The project is divided into two phases. Between 2020 and 2021, in parallel workshops with a total of 250 students, a vision of the "idea of a united Europe" will be discussed or drawn up. In the first phase (2020), historical, cultural, social or economic differences or aspects will be clarified and perspectives will be shown. The students will develop an age-appropriate electronic questionnaire, which is carried out at all participating schools (about 5000 students) in the respective national language. In the second phase (2021) this questionnaire will be evaluated by the students at workshops and the results prepared for a presentation at the participating schools. A presentation and joint statement for the European Union will be written in English.
The project "Youth in Europe - past, present & future" is a bilateral cooperation between two Spanish (Escuela 2 Cooperativa Valenciana, Escuela Garvina Cooperativa Valenciana) and three German schools (Artland-Gymnasium Quakenbrück, Friedrichgymnasium Altenburg, KGS Großefehn). In addition, the Colegio Juan Comenius Valencia (Spain) and the KGS Alexander von Humboldt School Wittmund (Germany) were involved. All schools have successfully formed the international network "Committee Europe" (www.commitee-europe.eu) for many years. This network is based on the idea of bringing together students from different European countries for mutual cultural exchange in order to eliminate prejudice and convey the idea of European "citizenship". The project had a total duration of 36 months (September 2019 to August 2022) and was divided into three phases: - Development of an age-appropriate electronic questionnaire - Implementation of the questionnaire - Evaluation and interpretation of the collected data Due to the global coronavirus pandemic, the Conference of Ministers of Education (KMK) of the Federal Republic of Germany had canceled all national and international school trips, day trips and student exchanges with effect from March 19, 2020 (circular decree 4/2020). The Spanish government had issued similar resolutions. For this reason, only the opening workshop at KGS-Großefehn (2019) could be held as a face-to-face event. Unfortunately, all of the following workshops took place as video conferences between the participating schools. One of the results of the workshop at KGS-Großefehn in September 2019 was a questionnaire with a total of 38 questions. In principle, it was not intended in this project to carry out a more in-depth statistical analysis with corresponding methods (e.g. ANOVA, CHI square test or similar), since neither the technical nor the mathematical knowledge could be assumed from the students. On the contrary, a "room for judgment" was desired, i.e. the students should have the opportunity to interpret possible country- and age-related differences from their point of view and with their knowledge. In addition, there was no evaluation of individual questions, but "clustered", i.e. questions were grouped into categories. There are four categories in total: the current "situation" (with the aspects of climate change, coronavirus pandemic, economic situation, and racism, prejudice & xenophobia), "European citizenship", "future perspectives" and "history of the EU" (with the aspects of founding of the EU, political regimes, Spanish history and WWII). A total of 1176 students took part in the online survey between 2020 and 2022, resulting in the following distribution among the countries involved: Spain: 362, Germany: 641, other countries: 173. The PEP contains the corresponding diagrams for all questions, divided according to countries and the respective age groups.