Congress NEWROPEANS 2000 - Paris, 5-7 October 2000:
THE FUTURE OF EUROPE : DEBATE FOR THE FIRST TIME, A TRULY EUROPEAN POLITICAL / A CHALLENGE FAR BEYOND NATIONAL PARTIES CONSIDERATIONS

President Jacques Chirac (in the morning) and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin (in the afternoon) debated in Sorbonne last Saturday 7 October with the young Europeans gathered on the occasion of the final session of Congress Newropeans 2000.

1,500 youngsters coming from more than 40 countries gave birth, through this unpreceded question-answer exchange, to a real European political debate in which participated many other European decision-makers.

This event enabled to launch various concrete citizen projects at the cross-road of civil society, Europe and new technologies.

The Newropeans open the door to a future common democracy
While in this month of October 2000, the Vlaams Block obtains 33% in Belgium by capitalizing on foreigners' rejection, and while the latest events in the Middle-East confronts us to the dead-ends of the peace agreements that failed to involve people, the young Europeans, under two very different forms, mobilise and express high and clear to the politicians and to the media that the only enthusiastic visions of the future are European :

. on one side, Serbian students play a leading-role in the fall of the ultranationalistic regime of Milosevic
. on the other side, more than 1,500 students and young professionals from over 40 nationalities (the Newropeans) come, at their own expense, to Paris, capital of the current EU Presidency, in order to demonstrate their enthusiasm for Europe, their lucidity regarding its actual fragility and their awareness of the limits of its capacity to resist the shocks that the Euro and the enlargements will bring in the coming decade if will, audacity and imagination do not impose themselves at the Nice Summit.

The European flag floats on the Sorbonne : mutual discovery between young Euro-citizens and " Euro-responsible " decision-makers
Far from the sterile debates on cohabitation, Jacques Chirac and Lionel Jospin who respectively opened and closed the last day of Congress Newropeans 2000, have shown that they had heard the voluntary message of the younger generation and have raised a real hope that Nice becomes the place for a relaunch of the European project.

The top of the French executive gives a new tone to the notion itself of EU Presidency which will no longer ever be a moment merely reserved to politicians and civil-servants. By doing so, it brings a new dimension to European politics and creates the category of " Euro-responsible " politicians, ready to debate in direct relation on the future of the Union with European citizens.

The crowd of European students in Sorbonne therefore finished the day with a feeling that they had attended the first experiment of European common democracy.

As for the politicians who debated sucessively with the audience, all of them declared that they had been impressed by the relevance and lucidity of the questions which resulted from other debates previously held (October 5-6) with 150 high-level European experts - such as Minister Elisabeth Guigou or European Commissionner Antonio Vitorino on matters related to justice and EU democratisation.

European sucess-story for the Newropeans 2000
The congress Newropeans 2000 intended to be a key-moment in a changing Europe, one where politicians and citizens debate over the future of the European project.

This double " invitation " was initiated by the association Prometheus-Europe. Jacques Chirac and Lionel Jospin, but also Pierre Moscovici, Elisabeth Guigou, European Commissionners Barnier and Vitorino, Romanian President Constantinescu, Bulgarian Foreign Affairs Minister Mihailova, Dutch, Portuguese and Czech European Ministers Benschop, Seixas da Costa and Telicka, made successive appearances at the Newropeans 2000 tribunes.

Lauched some 18 months ago by Prometheus-Europe, this European success-story of a group of 80 students who built the event by the strength of their will and enthusiasm, and thanks to the support of the French Ministry for European Affairs and the European Commission, come from the growing feeling all over Europe that it is becoming urgent to associate more closely the citizens to the next steps of the European construction : in Euroland, in the EU and in the applicant countries.

Democracy at the heart of the European project's relaunch
Lionel Jospin insisted on the fact that " Europe should continue to create civilisation ", while Jacques Chirac stressed the necessity that there was " not to implement a third-rate institutional reform " to face the various shocks Europe was about to endorse.

Michel Barnier, who is in charge of the " Dialogue on Europe " initiative under which auspices the event took place, did not forget to mention the risks related to an enlargement held too fast while he reaffirmed the necessity of enlargement.

Franck Biancheri, President of Prometheus-Europe and the initiator of this gathering, has summed up these expectations and constraints by indicating that the Nice Summit was " the switching that could lead either to the strengthening of the EU and the success of future enlargements, or to the failure of Euroland and the bankrupcy of the whole European project " since one should not forget that from 2002 onward, in Euroland, behind each Euro will hide a citizen !

And practically, a number of very innovating citizen projects:

- The Newropeans Student Team will bring the Newropeans 2000 message to the Nice Summit The team of European students who contributed directly to the success of the congress will go to Nice in order to bring to the French Presidency and to Commissionner Barnier a voluntary message open to the future so that they transmit it during the Summit to their colleages.

- Project for an online Student election : So that a student becomes a responsible Eurocitizen !
This project, resulting from the support of complementary organisations (CNRS, Election.com, Prometheus-Europe, Newropeans, Europe2020, Neurocom and Leonard de Vinci), generated particular interest in the congress. " Students see in it the possibility to make the university-body more aware of new technologies and to diminish the numeric gap between universities in the European Union while facilitating inter-academic communication ", says Régis Jamin, vice-president of election.com. Thus " Eu-Student Vote " intends to encourage universities to take part to a citizen mouvement using new technologies to develop a unique e-democracy in all the European Union.
A student board will be elected in spring 2001 via Internet which role will be to reflect on European education policies and which aim will be to become the intermediate between European institutions and university students. Goal : 1 million e-voters !

- Prometheus-Europe, a leader in civil society transcontinental web-portals : www.tiesweb.org (UE/US) and www.sitmed.org (UE/Med) were presented in La Sorbonne; they open new perspectives of cooperation for universities, associations, foundations or even citizens, to reinforce relations between the greater continental regions currently appearing everywhere in the world.

- Prometheus-Europe, via Project Globe 2020, wishes to contribute to the development by 2005 of such web-portals between each continent or greater region. See you at Newropeans 2003 ! Given the sucess met by the first edition, Prometheus-Europe has decided that a Newropeans congress would be held in the year before each European election with the aim to provide a tool of real European political debates.