Voice of Europe

From Businesses to People

For many years, most of the European’s agenda has been “companies-oriented”. But time has changed. Since 2019, with the Green deal and the Digital agenda which are the flag-ship projects of the European Union, regulations are not only affecting the way products and services are delivered to the Europeans, but also having the ambition of changing the way of life, influencing the way they live and consume.

The future of our food, the way we move, the eco-conception of our houses and the way we consume in general is being designed at large scale by European institutions and will be decided in the coming year with hundreds of regulations.

This paradigm shift in the European agenda calls for a paradigm shift in the way European society is involved in the public debate. If EU regulations need 4 to 7 years to become tangible and effective at local level, we cannot afford EU citizens waking up in a few years realising those choices being made by the European Union are not their choices. People must be embarked in those decisions that will have major impact in their lives now.

The desire for Europe

Is the European Union the far and cold body often depicted with its long corridors, blue-grey meeting rooms with interpretation boots, formal speeches and boring lines to takes that fuel the administrative machinery every day ?

Probably yes, partly, but it is only up to us to make it a lively, people-centric place; to make sure that European politicians remain strongly rooted in the real life; to make sure that technocrats do not forget a basic fact: the life within international organisations does not reflect properly the challenge faced by most of the people across Europe. EU regulations are not designed for the EU bubble but for the 450 million people in their diversity.

With Voice of Europe we have a reasonable ambition: make sure that Brussels, Strasbourg or Luxembourg where thousands of pages of regulations are drafted, impacting the daily life of Europe, are designed having in mind permanently one compass: the EU citizens. No conference, no long seminar or colloquium at the menu. Just exchanges formal and informal, around a table or a drink between citizens, politicians and decision-makers with always a multi-cultural dimension, a starting point – people’s expectations – and a principle – no preconceived idea.

Getting to know each others and acting together in the same direction are the first steps on the way to a common destiny as Europeans.

End of the world, end of months

The end of the world, and the end of months. These realities with all the antagonistic challenges going along should be at the core of the agenda of the European institutions. According to the last pan-European study designed for the European Parliament, EU citizens want the European Union to address as a priority the fight against climate change (43%), followed by measures to fight poverty and social exclusion (32%), measures to support the economy and create new jobs, and the fight against terrorism and organised crime (both 31%).