What does Europe Mean to You?

Nowadays when the world, including Europe, is fighting pandemic solidarity and togetherness in distance are essential to overcome this unprecedented challenge, defend our common values, defeat the virus and maintain unity. To Mark the Europe Day and remind our common values to our peers, with the support of the Delegation of the European Union in Georgia, we, Young European ambassadors shared what does Europe mean for us.

European Union is based on the rule of law, democracy, freedom and human rights, what makes this space unique for all. Let’s recall that the EU was created to maintain peace and stability, to overcome violence and support coexistence.

As for me, a Young European Ambassador from Georgia and an activist for the rights of people with disabilities, I would like to highlight some important aspects, why it is attractive and interesting to work closely with the European Union and join this community.

First of all, the European Union, with its legislation, institutional arrangements, justice and economics makes favourable conditions for its Member States and other partner countries to develop and get in better condition, than they used to be before. This is reflected in creating an environment where human needs are respected, providing free movement and accessing to education for all. The EU has also created a space where individuals can work in dignity, they are provided with safe living place and equal relationships between countries and peoples are being built.

On the other hand, the EU is neither only a geographical place, nor only material prosperity. The European Union is an idea, a space where the rights of each individual, each person are protected.

Consequently, I am glad to hold a title of a Young European Ambassador with the great responsibility. The Young European Ambassadors Initiative which operates in Eastern Partner countries aims that young people to introduce and provide knowledge about the European Union to their peers. YEAs are supposed to explain, share what European values mean and provide peers with information on youth opportunities. To implement these ideas into reality, we discuss plenty of different ideas and after that we organise many interesting activities, meetings in the regions of our countries, in different cities or villages.

The pandemic of Covid-19 has restricted us from organising activities outside, to face-to-face meetings, but it has further activated us on the virtual space and given us new opportunities to share information or common values with each other through alternative means.

Even though this year we could to celebrate Europe Day in Georgia in different cities with funny activities we decided to reach out the whole country in a different way. We, the Young European Ambassadors took short videos with messages of what the EU means for us and shared it on social media. As a result, a wonderful joint video featuring us all was created by merging individual videos to show once more that we are stronger together.

And what does the EU mean to you?