Europe’s Futures Annual Symposium 2022

Institute for Human Sciences IWM, « Europe’s Futures – Ideas for Action” 

in cooperation with University of Rijeka Center for Advanced Studies Southeast Europe

15 – 19 June 2022, Moise Palace (Cres, Croatia)

Europe and the European Union were already seriously being challenged in 2018 when we launched the Europe’s Futures Fellowship. Russia had invaded Georgia in 2008 and then Ukraine in 2014. A financial and Eurozone crisis had put the EU to the test as of 2008 only to be followed by the migration wave in 2014. And now we are confronted with a dramatic watershed moment, a breaking point, historically epoch-making, equal in so many respects to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Russia invaded on Thursday February 24, 2022, Ukraine, a sovereign European state whose aspirations were and are freedom, democracy and Europe.

Europe’s Future is at stake – A Time to make Bold Choices. Can we preserve an international order based on the rule of law, and can our European societies show resilience faced with the rise of authoritarian regimes now on the warpath, but also with the populist, nationalist, far right and far left movements across the world?

IWM Permanent Fellow Ivan Vejvoda directs the Europe’s Futures – Ideas for Action project and its programme of in-depth research leading to policy proposals, publications or direct action on topics of interest such as deterioration of rule of law and democracy in the European Union, the nexus of migration and borders and the unfinished enlargement of the European Union. In the academic 2020/21 Europe’s Futures – Ideas for Action welcomed its third cohort of fellows, expanding the network of closely-knit and committed Europeans brought together by the project to 27 exceptional individuals. On Europe’s Futures – Ideas for Action we also undertake to add quality to the public debate in Austria, other EU member states and candidate countries on issues crucial to the future of Europe. To this end and in cooperation with fellows, alumni and a network of institutional partners, the project organises and supports conferences, debates, expert meetings and other impactful public events.