Another Europe is possible. Embarking on this notion, the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra (FEUC) is promoting, in partnership with the Centre for Social Studies, a series of Conversations on Europe between March and April 2024.

The initiative will be curated by Licínia Simão, a FEUC lecturer and CES researcher, and will feature Manuel Loff, Pedro Bacelar Vasconcelos, and Francisco Sena Santos.

This initiative is based on the realisation that the construction of a European project that responds to citizens’ desires and dreams remains a utopia. On the one hand, a utopia that urges us to build an area of democracy, freedom, prosperity, solidarity and respect, representing a path of inspiration for each new generation of Europeans and for those who interact with them by deepening integration in the European Union.

However, on the other hand, it is also a utopia that is far from being a reality for ever more Europeans, who have been cut off from economic prosperity by multiple and successive crises and worsening inequalities, or for many who feel that democratic participation and governance at the various levels of public life in Europe are today turned on their heads, paving the way for fear and uncertainty. Even outside the European Union, utopia dissipates as geographical enlargements drag on in endless processes and European borders and interests become more narrowly defined.

This series of Conversations on Europe starts by reflecting on these different utopias to problematise the current moment in European construction. On the brink of another European election, in June 2024, this is a favourable moment to use the space of public university to debate some of the major issues facing the Union, Europeans and their partners, contributing to the plurality of thought and perspectives.

Programme

6 March, 2024 | Manuel Loff, Europe is made of memory and future

13 March, 2024 | Pedro Bacelar Vasconcelos, Europe is made of citizenship and social justice

10 April, 2024 | Marisa Matias, Europe is made of participation and resistance
THIS LECTURE WAS CANCELLED

17 April, 2024 | Francisco Sena Santos, Europe is made of diversity and equality