Event report

Bled Strategic Forum Overture to the future: Act II The event, "Overture to the future: Act II", was organised in the frame of Bled Strategic Forum Series (gid://decidim-dife/Decidim::Hashtag/1157/BSFSeries). The discussion took place between Mr Gašper Dovžan, State Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia and Mr Juan González-Barba Pera, State Secretary for the European Union of Spain, who is also a Member of the executive committee of the conference of the Future of Europe. The discussion was moderated by, Mr Peter Grk, Bled Strategic Forum Secretary General. 30 Students from Spain and Slovene joined the debate via zoom and posed questions to the speakers and presented their views on the Future of Europe. The discussion was also live streamed and can still be viewed here https://www.facebook.com/BledStrategicForum/videos/2995221490798621 The State Secretary Mr Pera introduced the main aim and function of the conference as well as the platform for the Conference on the Future of Europe, mentioning its importance due to its function as the main channel of communication between the wider society and the EU institutions. He stressed the importance of this bottom-up approach of communication. Developing further on the idea of how the EU institutions will need to reconsider their method of decision-making, taking in account the messages of the society. The focus of the debate is on the topic of EU, its autonomous function and its strategic position in the world. The other part of the debate seems to focus mainly on the internal EU challenges, for example; migration, rule of law, decision making process, etc. State Secretary Mr Dovžan, mentioned the preliminary scepticism, which was present, about the debate taking place during the COVID-19 epidemic. However, EU proved itself as being able to deliver some of the conclusions and recommendations derived from the conference, whilst also handling the Covid-19 epidemic crisis. Both agreed that there are still many challenges in the forefront, Mr Pera mentioned the importance of the Euro-Mediterranean dimension of EU and it being able to find appropriate solutions when tackling issues like migration and other crisis. On the other hand Mr Dovžan, stressed that enlargement should be considered part of the Future of Europe, mentioning the importance of overcoming certain technical anomalies, which have slowed down the enlargement process. Towards the end of the debate, the students from the Spanish as well as Slovene faculties joined the discussion who were interested in the further developments of these debates involving the youth. Students also showed interest on the topic of gender equality, as one of the pillars of the conference of the Future of Europe. Another focus of the students was based how Slovenia plans to tackle its mentioned priorities, for the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. Lastly, the students seemed to be interested in EU's geo-strategic plans in regards to its trading partners, China and US on the other side. State secretary Pera concluded the discussion saying that "Our priorities are your priorities, how otherwise would we be a Union".