We can’t do without them” “

The first “Campus of the students of Europe” was held in Orvieto from 11 to 16 November. Organized by Italy’s Ministry for Education in collaboration with the European Commission, the Campus was attended by 130 students aged 16 and 17 from 16 member states of the 25-member EU. They discussed Europe, youth policies and schools, in what was called an “exercise of active citizenship”. The presence of many students from Eastern Europe was significant. “It’s not the first time I’ve gone abroad – says Katarina, Polish secondary-school student – but it’s the first time I’ve had the opportunity to meet Europeans of my own age group and speak with them about our present and our future, not forgetting our past, which has admittedly been different, but common in culture and religion”. The question of European citizenship emerged as the key to the integration of post-enlargement Europe. Evita, aged 17 (from Lithuania) says: “It’s also written in the final Declaration of the Campus: if we are not united in our diversities, if we fail to respect each other, or learn from each other’s cultures, it will be difficult for the individual national identities to form the European identity: clearly it’s a task greater than we young people, but it’s a task that can’t be performed without us”. Miklos, a 16-year-old student from Hungary, says that “the meeting between youngsters and the exchange of experiences is what’s most wonderful in this experience: we didn’t know each other before, but now not only do we know each other but we have understood that all of us can and must be protagonists of a new Europe that listens to what we have to say”. Europe and information is the question on which attention was focused by Martin, who comes from a small town in Poland: “I was surprised to find out that a White Paper for Youth has been published by the European Commission: even more so when I discovered that many of the ideas in the White Paper are those that we young people already have in our head”.