Plans for the 2020 State of Europe Forum in Zagreb May 8 &9 had to be cancelled due to the corona crisis.

However, there will be an online forum on Saturday, May 9, 18.00-19.30 CET open to all. This is exactly seventy years to the hour after Robert Schuman’s three-minute speech in Paris, the Schuman Declaration, in which he proposed the supranational European Coal and Steel Community, which was the first step towards the European Union. That speech laid the foundation of the European House in which today 500 million Europeans live together in peace, from 27 nations.

Moderated by Italian journalist and television producer, Salvatore Loria, the forum programme will cover three blocks of past, present and future, with videos and discussions.

1. 18.00: What is significant about May 9, the Schuman Declaration, and Schuman’s personal role? How can we celebrate that day? as a Together for Europe Day? European Family Day? Interdependence Day?

Salvatore will interview senior lecturer Margriet Krijtenburg (The Hague, NLD) and Jeff Fountain (Amsterdam, NLD), both of whom have written books about Schuman. Laura Mihaly (Cluj-Napoca, ROU) will tell about how she gets children involved in learning about the Schuman story.

2. 18.30: What is the state of Europe today suffering from the corona crisis, but also a crisis in democracy? Is 2020 the end of neo-liberalism just as 1989 saw the end of communism? What would Schuman say was missing from the European project today?

Alolz Peterle, former PM from Slovenia and MEP, will be joined by Wolfgang Palaver, professor from Innsbruck, Austria, Sari Essayah, former MEP and present leader of the Christian Democrats in Finland, and Davor Ivo Stier, former Croatian minister of European and Foreign Affairs for this lively discussion.

3. 19.00: What hope is there for Europe tomorrow? Can Schuman still offer us wisdom for the way forward, wisdom we have ignored in the past which has landed us in many problems?

A new guest will join us for this section, Victoria Martín de la Torre, another ‘Schuman’ author, from Madrid, who believes we must recover the concept of ‘community’ at the heart of Schuman’s thinking.

Form a ‘watch party’ and join this forum on Saturday!