Make Your Say — Celebration of Europe Day and launch of the Conference on the Future of Europe in Galicia and Portugal. The Galicia Europa Foundation and the Instituto Português do Desporto y Juventude celebrated cross-border cooperation on Europe Day with a joint event. The event was attended by more than 80 people, representing the entities involved; associations such as Team Europe, EU Coopero, Synergia or Milky Life of Galicia and Northern Portugal; and youth from Galician and Portuguese Eurocities, or other points in both areas, as well as new entrepreneurs. The initiative was part of the joint action between twelve Galician and Portuguese entities, led by the Galicia Europa Foundation and Europe Direct A Coruña, which, within the framework of the Conference on the Future of Europe and under the title É O TEU MOMENTO (# EoTeuMomento), aims to encourage the participation of youth in the framework of cross-border cooperation through activities that promote the debate on the European project from May to December 2021. During the event, young people who participated made proposals and reflected on how to improve cross-border cooperation between the two regions, such as: • They pointed out the limitations of cross-border cooperation in the field of partnerships, proposing that obstacles be removed and that the proposal to create cross-border youth associations be brought to the next Iberian Spain-Portugal Summit. • Seek legal support to improve youth involvement in cross-border cooperation. • Improving mental health proposals, drawing on the resources included in the EU4Health programme, which allocates resources to: improving and promoting health in the Union; protect the population from serious cross-border threats to health; improve the availability of medicines, health products and crisis-relevant products and make them more accessible; strengthen health systems, their resilience and resource efficiency. • Leveraging European funds to bridge the digital divide in rural areas, especially in the youth field. • In order to strengthen the cultural ties between the two regions, some young people consider it necessary for Galician and Portuguese public television stations to be available in both regions. • Greater emphasis on non-formal training. Associative and volunteer work are becoming increasingly important. In a globalised world, what is achieved outside formal education will be a major and important differentiation that will take precedence in the curriculum of people. • An Open Platform for the North of Portugal and Galicia, containing suggestions, ideas, approaches, proposals, projects and initiatives that incentivise a free, inclusive and youthful Europe so that they can develop their projects and concerns; these young people who have already suffered three major crises, and must have the chance to live in a more humanised Europe, with more opportunities. In addition, we find attached a reflection not only presented by a young man during the meeting, but also sent it in writing to the organisers: “70 years have passed after the Schuman Declaration, last year the 25th anniversary of the Schengen Treaty (26 March 2020) was celebrated, two important milestones in the construction of Europe that have nevertheless coincided with the worst health crisis in recent history. Among the countless consequences of COVID-19, the closure of borders has mainly marked the border population in the EU. An unprecedented closure of borders in the 26 years of the Schengen Treaty, which has been carried out without regard to the exceptional nature of the ‘Eurocities’, has been promoted by the European Union itself and by its Member States for decades. As if not enough, this closure has occurred two years in a row without taking into account the lessons learned from the first closure, neither joint plans nor a roadmap to eliminate the uncertainties surrounding the regularisation of transit between the localities have been envisaged. In practice, the closure of borders was equivalent to having erected walls between neighborhoods of the same population unit, affecting family relations, social projects, interdependent business initiatives and local economic dynamics that draw the day-to-day life of a Eurocity. But what has certainly been most shocking has been the effect that this situation, which is too protracted over time, has had on mutual trust. This is the main consequence that we must try to avoid in the future, since, if broken, it will be impossible to recover the dynamics of pre-Covid integration. Based on this background: Eurocities, at least those constituted as EGTCs, call for a more active role in the European integration process, demanding new models of participation in the institutional framework of states/regions leading to effective multi-level governance based on the principle of subsidiarity. Recognition that should be promoted by the EU with the aim of providing a legal framework to Eurocities as functional urban areas of a unique character (without borders), with a specific status quo for their residents, that in the face of possible situations of border closures that may occur, are considered exceptional open areas. And all this in order to regain the confidence and commitment of citizens in a future project.”