Fostering a broader reaching public debate about the future of the European Union, both at the national level and in European terms and involving both political decision makers and citizens, forms the objective of the New Pact for Europe project. Promoted by the King Baudoin Foundation, managed by the Network of European Foundations (NEF) and with the support of a consortium of foundations, and including the Gulbenkian Foundation, this project seeks to contribute to the creation of ideas on how to overcome the challenges Europe currently faces. On the Portuguese side, Maria João Rodrigues takes on coordinating this initiative with Pedro Magalhães as lead analyst. In addition to the Gulbenkian Foundation, this project receives the support of the German foundations Bertelsmann Stiftung, Stiftung Mercator and Allianz Kulturstiftung, the Spanish entities Fundação La Caixa and the Open Society Initiative for Europe, the European Cultural Foundation (Netherlands), the Belgian European Policy Centre and European Network Foundations institutions as well as the Swedish Cultural Foundation of Finland.
Structuring this European debate involves drafting answers to the following three questions: “What is at stake should «Europe» not prove able to resolve the various challenges currently faced?”; “What type of cooperation is needed at the European level to respond to this crisis?”; and “In what way do the answers to these two questions result in initiatives able to make the EU more effective and ensure broader public support?”
The Gulbenkian Foundation sits on the project’s Supervisory Committee and will host some of the debates and meetings taking place over the course of this year. The first meeting was held in December and drew upon the support of various European decision makers and political actors and including António Vitorino, Vítor Martins, António Costa, various MEPs and their Portuguese counterparts, alongside Artur Santos Silva and Isabel Mota, respectively the president and director of the Gulbenkian Foundation.
The next action within the New Pact for Europe framework takes place in February with a survey of Portuguese citizens on their own responses to the aforementioned questions.
This project on the social networks