European Alternatives works with the conviction that a transnational renovation of our political imaginations, institutions, and actions needs to take place to correctly understand and address the different challenges that Europe is facing.
Going beyond the nation-state is a condition for promoting a more democratic, equal and culturally open society, and Europe, as an idea and political space, offers a possibility for doing this. This is the vision of European Alternatives.
An alternative Europe would include and emerge from:
- Supporting and promoting outward looking, imaginative politics, by giving a space to / supporting the many skilled alternative voices we know
- Spreading new & alternative knowledge & narratives, and encouraging critical discourse, through accessible tools and spaces
- Embodying a political European citizenship, respect of human rights, fundamental rights and civic space, genuine free movement, and critical engagement with legal principles and norms and their suspension or infringement
- Making the European level accessible and increasing its perception as relevant scale of analysis and action
- Fostering socioeconomic empowerment & inclusion in/of communities, by securitize personal situations, thereby fighting against precarity, thus lowering the bar & risks to participation
- Creating & supporting the presence of transnational organisations & multipliers
- Raising the capacity of civil society organisations by leading them to focus on operating relationally in their ecosystem rather than as standalone islands
- Striving towards this vision: each year we set organisational priorities for the year ahead, in consultation with our staff, advisors, and trustees
Our desired social impact would be to:
- Create this vibrant transnational space:
- Bring together & maintain a vivid ecosystem of transnational activists
- Foster & strengthen democratic practices in this space
- Boost alternatives to far-right ideas and actors
- Make this space important to European-level actors by increasing the EU’s democratic capital
- Re-imagine this space, by carrying transformative values:
- Imagine alternative futures & carry transformative values (decolonialism, intersectionality, ecofeminism)
- Push back against the influence of far-right ideas & discourses
- Make this an inviting space to all:
- Highlight relevance of transnational scale in the fight for social justice
- Promote translocal strategies (make local actors feel at home)
- Undermine the nationalist frame by counteracting the exclusionary effects of border-making
In order to achieve this, we structure our work programme into 5 streams:
Imagine
Experiment in self-expression, using artistic innovation to create and play with new narratives, imaginaries, and representations, and offer diverse formats for learning and being together.
Train
Increase the capacity levels of participants in areas relevant to opening the civic and political space at the level of Europe and to the promotion of alternative narratives about Europe
Assemble
Hold spaces for deliberation, decision-making and first hand experience of democracy at community-level.
Act
Carry the demands of activists, social movements, to exert influence on decision-makers at local, national & european-level.
Learn
Ensure research-informed learning of transnational trends, dynamics, needs, risks and opportunities, within European Alternatives, among the wider ecosystem, and in political institutions.