Strategy

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: environment, migration, the Brexit, and the emergence of the right-wing forces.

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

  • Creative cultures which question and go beyond boundaries.
  • Critical awareness of Europe’s connections with the rest of the world, its global role and its colonial history.
  • Informed and critical transnational publics that are engaged with systemic change.
  • Practices of political, social and cultural activism which take account of the ways key-issues cross geographical borders and combat social injustice.
  • Alternative economic models which are socially inclusive, decolonial and anti-oppressive, do not create inequalities and promote solidarity, mutual care, and responsibility.
  • Transnational political institutions, political parties and forms of governance which are citizen-led, focused on the common good, and enable participation and expression of all parts of society.
  • 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.
Striving towards this vision, each year we set organisational priorities for the year ahead, in consultation with our staff, advisors, and trustees. These priorities serve to focus our work and orientate the implementation of our work programme.

We set the following priorities for 2021 – 2022:

INSPIRING OUR MEMBERS, PARTNERS, AND PUBLIC TO CO-CREATE AN ALTERNATIVE EUROPEAN ARTISTIC IMAGINARY AND CULTURE

Our cultural and artistic program aims to create a new narrative for Europe that includes a decolonial perspective from non-EU countries promoting solidarity, mutual care, and responsibility. Over 2020 we will work towards our flagship Transeuropa that will take place in 2021. We will also organise other artistic events, activities and processes which aim to influence public opinion and invite more people to join us in promoting a transnational European culture and artistic vision based on our values.

We plan to do this by:

  1. Providing innovative, transnational and open formats for cultural, artistic and political debates.
  2. Serving as a point of convergence for political and civil society actors to exchange ideas, concepts, and alternatives for European culture.
  3. Engaging and working closely with international artists and artistic institutions in the cause for a new transnational European imaginary.

Related activities in the work-program:

BUILDING THE CAPACITY OF OUR MEMBERS FOR NEW FORMS OF TRANSNATIONAL ACTIVISM

We want to improve and increase the knowledge and skills of citizens, social movements, and activists that are already acting beyond borders. Through lectures, participatory courses, open spaces, and public events, we mix expert input and theoretical reflection with hands-on experience, peer-to-peer learning, and sharing of strategies and concrete examples of innovative transnational initiatives.

We plan to do this by:

  1.  Rethinking on how our European democracy works by empowering citizens by tried and tested participatory tools to influence decision making, as well as through innovative deliberative methodologies.
  2. Innovating with new forms, tools, and platforms for learning with a particular focus on empowering existing initiatives and movements.

EXPANDING AND SHARING KNOWLEDGE ON CRUCIAL TRANSNATIONAL TRENDS

We want to make our voice and ideas heard at a crucial time where re-nationalisation, xenophobia, and climate change denial risk overshadowing our call for a renewed, solidary and just Europe. 

We plan to do this by:

  1. Developing further our capacity and reputation for academic research.
  2. Ensuring a PR strategy in parallel to all our activities in the work-programme.
  3. Dedicating organisational time to producing written analysis, books, publications, interviews, and articles to pitch to press and other media platforms.
  4. Organising promotional events in different European cities to present and disseminate our work.

We encourage our accountability and evaluation of impact through measurable indicators. We develop our yearly MEL (Monitoring, Learning, Evaluation) to measure our success, and we develop our annual reports to present our impact.