The Berggruen Institute on Governance (BIG) will host the international conference Project Europe, which will bring together a range of European leaders from public and private sectors and the media to discuss Europe’s current challenges and opportunities, in Madrid on February 27-28.
The event, which is hosted in partnership with the Government of Spain and is being organized in close collaboration with PRISA, will feature Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of Spain and Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho of Portugal; former Prime Ministers Enrico Letta of Italy, Felipe González of Spain, and Mario Monti of Italy; and candidates for the upcoming European Parliamentary elections. Key themes of the event will include youth unemployment, investment and jobs, labor mobility, and migration – as well as populism and the upcoming 2014 European Parliamentary elections.
Project Europe is the third town hall in a series organized by BIG’s Council for the Future of Europe (CFE), which promotes a common European discourse on the design of a federal political union and proposes the steps necessary to achieve a stronger, more resilient union. CFE has organized similar conferences in Berlin and Paris. The third series of this debate, being held in Madrid, will also address the upcoming elections to the European Parliament 2014 and their impact on the future of Europe. “The status quo is untenable. Europe´s citizens no longer understand where Europe is headed and a dangerous political radicalization is underway,” said CFE Special Advisor Sylvie Goulard. “The conference is seeking to promote a pro-EU dialogue in advance of the elections.”
CFE members will hold a press conference immediately before the council opens on Thursday, February 27. Individual interviews of council members or speakers may be available upon request.
Conference sessions from the Project Europe forum will not be open to the public but may be followed via streaming video in Spanish at elpais.com and in English on the world section of The Huffington Post (theworldpost.com). Interested parties can also join the conversation on Twitter by following @berggruenInst and tracking the hashtag #BIGProEU. Press can register for the event by sending an RSVP to the contacts below.
