Event report

As part of the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFE), the city of Nuremberg and EUROPE DIRECT Nuremberg carried out a postcard campaign. With a comparatively low-threshold approach, the action aimed at encouraging as many citizens as possible to participate in the CoFE. On Europe Day, 9 May 2021, the postcards were presented by the Mayor of Nuremberg, Marcus König, the Economic and Scientific Officer of the City of Nuremberg, Dr. Michael Fraas, as well as the Bavarian Minister of State for European Affairs and International Affairs, Melanie Huml. The possibility of participation ran until 31 December. December 2021. Due to the objective, the postcards were available in two variants: With a free text card, citizens could propose their own new idea on any topic. On the basis of a postcard with check boxes, mood pictures on the topics of the conference were asked. The ticking options “do more”, “do less” and “do so” answered the question of the desired commitment and competences of the European Union in the relevant thematic area. At the reference date on 31 December. More than 1,000 postcards with nearly 1,400 ideas (it was possible to express several ideas on a postcard) were received on December 12, 2021. Ideas have been submitted on all topics as well as almost all sub-categories of the CoFE platform. However, there are significant differences in frequency. By far, the most feedback was received from the free text postcards on the topics “climate change and the environment” and “a stronger economy, social justice and employment”. After that, the topics “values and rights, the rule of law, security”, “further ideas” and “education, culture, youth and sport” follow almost the same way. The other topics have been mentioned less frequently: “Digital change”, “Democracy in Europe”, “The EU in the world”, “Health” and “migration”. Since the action is anonymised, it is not possible to make a clear statement on the socio-demographic or socio-economic background of the participants. It should be noted, however, that a large proportion of the postcards received are the return of events with school classes in vocational and general schools, i.e. the ideas come from young people disproportionately.