BECOME A TOGETHER ACTIVIST

Ambassadors are the pillars of Together. They become part of a community of European activists, they are invited to join the Together events across Europe, they can participate in debates with other citizens, politicians, civil society organisations and experts and they help shaping our common vision for a progressive future.

We should promote democracy within our own parties and organizations. We should invest in creating new forms of participatory online and offline engagement with our activists, and have citizens have a greater say on the political priorities and choices of our political family and of the European Union in general. The progressives must reach out to the people, and become the European front-runner in creating new forms of political engagement and systems of mutual feedback between citizens and elected politicians.

Cohesion policy will be based on solidarity or it won't have a solid and bright future. It must support citizens in their personal development. It must be about sustainability, quality infrastructure and economic development which reduces the gaps between regions, between generations and between gender. Cohesion policy must be visible for the citizens. This is absolutely crucial for the image of Europe. It must invest in areas where national investments lack and it must also be ready to deal with new challenges such as migration. We must aim for a greater coherence through thematic concentration, a proper control mechanism, a single audit chain, the implementation of a standard cost and a coordination with EU macroeconomic policies in order to achieve simplification and so increase the efficiency of the cohesion policy.

The modern social democratic agenda must point out a new political project against the empty political skirmishes that happen in Europe; a new political view that can restore the power of the progressive political thoughts in a globalized world. The social democracy has the obligation to fight against the same politicians who are perhaps for decades in the forefront and personal political power schemes who are willing to fight the ideas of all those who feel "outsiders" of the various closed and exclusive systems that keep the continent captive, for all of us who believe that Europe can change. What we need to recall to our collective political memory is that the level of progress that we have conquered is premised on the tenets of the open and inclusive society.

An European Pillar of Social Rights should not mean a remedial to deterioration of jobs, nor a generous tip in the redistribution of wealth. No. An European Pillar of Social Rights should mean to create new jobs (especially for young people), to fight against inequalities in all their forms (between member states, between different workers and between genders) and to guarantee to each citizen a good quality of life.

What kind of Europe does Africa need? Europe cannot be of any practical help for Africa if the first does not speak as a strong and unite civil power. Europe should invest in a long-term development plan for Africa, complying with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and engage in fair and socially responsible business relations. Only by supporting Africa’s economic and cultural empowerment, as well as investing on the usage of renewable energy sources (favoring access to energy), Europe can initiate a virtuous circle of long term development, filling the economic gaps and empowering the African people.

Europe is the world’s beacon of peace, rights and liberties. No other community has ever been able to secure stability, prosperity and equity across national borders for such a long time. However, for many people the European Union has ceased to be legitimated just by its past achievements. It is hard to base the Union’s legitimacy in the shift from war to peace for those who have always lived in peace. For many, the EU must now deliver on the expectations of its citizens, who seek to live in a more secure, more egalitarian and more inclusive continent. A progressive Europe is the one that gives a response to those citizens’ concerns. In my view, climate change is the most urgent, most important challenge that both the world and the European Union are facing in the 21st Century. In tackling this challenge, all levels of governance must weigh in their capabilities and align their efforts in the same direction.
Cities are the governance level that is closest to European citizens, but also the first ones to suffer from the economic and social impacts of climate change. Desertification puts additional pressure on water reserves in Southern Europe; floods are ravaging Central and Eastern European countries; and sea level rise is already an existential threat to coastal and port cities, always taking its toll on the most vulnerable ones. For this reason, cities must spearhead both climate ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and efforts to protect citizens from the adverse effects of climate change. Only by empowering cities to take such decisions, the EU will be able to deliver to its people, and we can wait no longer. A progressive Europe is the one that allows for that, building a bottom-up response to the real needs of European citizens. A progressive Europe is not one that lives out of its past, but one that builds its future by caring for its present.

In order to progress, Europe should not be afraid of the voices of the youth, or to represent the ones who are truly in need. If we anyhow choose to be afraid of something, at least it should be the fear of the elite and their influences.

We live in the most propitious era to make the transformations that we aspire to. A just world where no one is left behind.
As the most prepared youth of ever we can never turn our backs on the challenges. Your voice counts and there is a lot to develop.
Europe is our backyard, let's make it really fairer, more equal and more fraternal Together.

My ideal for Europe is a responsible, peaceful and coherent union that provides equality and freedom to each citizen for current and future generations. Decisions have to be adapted to long term objectives and benefit every human being, across borders and social classes. A sustainable development for a sustainable Europe.

We want a Europe of democracy. It is therefore crucial that Europe needs more communication among citizens and politicians, allowing them to give more policy impulses. Europe Together is a great way to join the political dialogue, online and offline. In particular young citizens, the future of Europe, should use this opportunity to contribute to the debate. Moreover, it is clear that Europe is currently facing a lot of crises, the rise of the far right, youth unemployment or the horrible terrorists attacks are some of them. All these challenges cannot be met by single member states, but only as a strong union. Europe Together is in this process an important signal for European unity and a European spirit.

SOCIETY OR POLITICAL SOCIETY
Can civil society to be independent from political life? I think that there is a moral distinction between social and political action. Social action is something altruistic, whereas, political action is something that is supposed to contribute to help social actions. However, in my opinion both dimension are tied to each other, it's not realistic to imagine political and social action separately. Civil society in many places plays the role that politics should play, namely listening to the real problems of citizens. Therefore, in this context the involvement of young people becomes fundamental. The opportunities for young people to participate in communities may influence their behaviour and development, contributing to increase their active participation in the community and in politics.
On a global scale, civil society organizations play an incredibly important role and NGOs are the main actors, doing a very hard job for instance after natural disasters like earthquakes, hurricanes they intervene to serve people affected and help them return to normal. In order to have a strong social impact, civil society needs to be supported by institutions, in economic terms but also for the creation of networks connected that can become an added value on the different territories, boosting social impact. The creation of networks that share common values is a fundamental pillar for improving the involvement of associations in civil society. European and National Institutions, in order to involve as many people as possible have to promote action with the aims to increase young people participation in civil society and political life, including:
- National service programmes;
- Give more space to social movements, including those among policy promoters;
- Sport and no formal mechanism to encourage civic participation;
- Round table among the main actors of civil society;
- Enhance spaces where civil society is heard by politicians, including the problems that civil society brings into institutions on the political agenda;
- Strengthening European networks in order to share common ideas; Therefore Education and training are a fundamental pillar on which to aim to improve participation in civil society contributing to sharing commons value and contributing to create a European identity.