Transeuropa Festival, EA’s members take the floor

For European Alternatives’ members these are days of hectic activity. The Transeuropa Festival is approaching and every activist is working hard to create interesting and stimulating events in their own city.
These people are all volunteers who dedicate an important part of their private life to this and many other activities that European Alternatives runs all the year long.

We asked them to explain what the reasons for their commitment were, trying to better define what it means to be part of this organisation for people from all parts of Europe.
Anca from Romania, Grégory from France, Daphne from Germany and Tsvetelina from Bulgaria kindly answered our questions. Here is what they said:

Why are you a member of European Alternatives?

Grégory: “I want to experiment a new form of participating democracy in order to build & spread a citizenship beyond the nation state level as a “work in progress”, an experimentation of the European slogan “United in diversity”. The other point is that if we want the European values of justice, culture and equality to be heard, Europe NEEDS to be unified in a global world to face the power of other nations”.

What do you get from being a member of EA?

Tsvetelina: “EA gives that amazing feeling of creativity, sharing of ideas and making things happen. It’s amazing to get first-hand experience of how ideas evolve and how things are done in so many different countries. That makes me look at local issues from a completely new angle”.

Why are you involved in the preparation of Transeuropa Festival?

Tsvetelina: “I like the idea of a transnational festival that combines arts, politics and culture. It’s very good experiencing it but even more exciting being part of the team that is organising it. We all get the chance to share ideas, put them in action and feel like making a difference”.

What do you expect from the Festival?

Daphne: “…to raise curiosity and political awareness in people across Europe, seeing the connections that exist in Europe especially through artistic means and expressions. If it surprises people, reaches not the usual suspects of an already informed and interested public and becomes part of an emergent truly cross- European civil society engagement, the festival is a success“.

What does transnational means to you?

Anca: “Transnational means connected, it means a togetherness aimed at increasing efficiency and empowering communities in all its forms.”
What is the event you like the most from your city programme? Why?

Daphne: “The event that was born out of last year’s festival evaluation and that truly aims at connecting cities is the transnational walk on 9th of May. I am curious to see if this format helps put the ‘transnational’ into practice.”.