What can the EU do to protect the founding values of the European project?

What is indeed becoming a problem in Europe is the illiberal wave against free trade, globalisation, immigration and tolerance for difference. Even worse, some times those views are supported by outright nativist and racist parties.

If liberal democratic parties are going to win back voters, first of all we need to stop simply reacting to solutions offered by the populists, and instead we have to regain the initiative in the public debate. After all it was parties like the EPP that shaped Europe as we know it. For many years, in Europe we have been discussing topics of secondary importance while failing to address the everyday life problems of Europeans. It took us way too long to realise the necessity of a European Border and Coast Guard while 1.5 million people crossed the European boarder illegally just in 2015, we still don't have a fully functional common European Immigration and Asylum Policy nor a European Intelligence Capacity to tackle terrorism. The European citizens want more action in the fight against terrorism, more action in the fight against unemployment, more European action on the issue of migration. The traditional political parties need to carefully listen to the real concerns of the voters and they need to provide convincing solutions to the problems. As long as the above problems remain policy priorities, populist parties will continue to attract votes with their nativist and extremist positions.

Through the #iMEurope, a campaign we launched in 2016, we analysed the status quo and asked ourselves, as the young generation of Europe, how we can contribute to keeping the EU strong and efficient in future and we tried to find answers to the concerns I raised above. In brief we identified eight sectors of reform: Institutional Reform, Youth, Migration and Asylum, Economy, Monetary & Fiscal Policy, Security & Defence, Energy & Environment and ‪Digitalisation. Among the key demands we identified are the definite move of the European Parliament’s institutions in Strasbourg and Luxembourg to Brussels and the further integration of European foreign policy especially in the areas of security and defense. Furthermore, we suggested specific measures to create an environment that improves the economic fortunes of the youngest generations and allows them to gain an understanding of the EU and its institutional framework. Overall, our outcomes concentrate on policy with a true European added value and makes the case for a globalist Europe committed to the transatlantic alliance and free trade.

In the next years we will need ambition and stronger cooperation within all the levels of society, however, political organisations have a major responsibility in tackling the challenges ahead of us and help Europe progress much beyond slogans. Few of the points I tried to make so far is that Political Parties have to re-engage with the public, increase accountability, introduce reforms better adapted to modern society, boost job creation and growth, reduce income and wealth inequality, provide economic opportunities to the young, and properly integrate refugees. We also need to respect the frustration of Europe's citizens instead of calling racist anyone that disagrees with us and we need to look for new approaches to stop populism gaining ground in Europe. It is vital that we draw lessons from our mistakes and if there is one thing that we have learnt well in the past year is that ignoring populists has become largely ineffective.

In order to better address the identity challenge, except for taking the necessary measures we have been discussing, it is also important at one hand to remind our selves where we come from and that we have always been at our best when we have been part of the european conversation. Nonetheless, on the other hand we need to build a stable vision of where we want to go since at least in my eyes - the ultimate goal of the EU should be more clear.

Youth organisations have a very important role to play - we need to work hard to keep our European values popular amongst the young generations since the vast majority of youngsters are tolerant and carry multi-cultural values. We have seen the importance of young voters in few recent elections such as in Austria or in Ireland where Van der Bellen and Enda Kenny appealed well to young voters and successfully beat the populist wave.

My prediction is that ultimately, the illiberal wave will pass. In the meantime, we must try to limit the damage. Failure to act decisively now can further harm the peaceful, integrated, globalised state that is the EU.