Europe Talks
30 Oct 2020
What a strange year it has been in Europe. On the one hand, we have been closer together than ever before. From Finland to France, Poland to Germany: in one fell swoop, citizens of countries across the continent experienced how drastically a pandemic can change day-to-day life. Travel restrictions and border controls have divided us to a degree we haven’t experienced in a very long time. Even during the summer holidays, it wasn’t easy or sometimes even possible to meet up to talk about life in the midst of the global pandemic.
When, if not now, should Europe come together for a conversation?
To get that conversation going, ZEIT ONLINE, in cooperation with media partners from 15 other countries, devised Europe Talks, a platform where people from around Europe, with varying and often polar political views, can come together for a virtual face-to-face discussion. After the launch on October 19 people can sign up till November 30th. A matching phase (during which the conversation partners are introduced to each other and organise their own conversation) is foreseen from November 30 to December 12. With a concluding Europe Talks event on December 13th!
These conversations are made possible by a collaboration between ZEIT ONLINE and a large network of European media organisations: bTV Media Group in Bulgaria, Calea Europeana in Romania, Delfi in Latvia, De Volkskrant in the Netherlands, Der Standard in Austria, Efimerida Ton Syntakton in Greece, Expresso in Portugal, France24 in France, Gazeta Wyborcza in Poland, HotNews in Romania, Kapital in Slovakia, La Repubblica in Italy, LRT.lt in Lithuania, Mirror in Great Britain, Phoenix in Germany, Politiken in Denmark, Republik in Switzerland.
Europe Talks is supported by the Federal Foreign Office on the occasion of Germany’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2020 as well as by the European Cultural Foundation, the Allianz Kultur Stiftung and the Evens Foundation. Europe Talks is organised in partnership with the Goethe Institut.
You can read more on the 2019 Europe Talks edition in our 2020 annual magazine Common Ground.
