Paris, 5 February 2018 – European Awareness Day, Europe: what a Passion!

The Jacques Delors Institute organises, in the context of the MoreEU project, in partnership with the International Centre for European and Global Governance (CesUE) and the European Association for Education (AEDE), the Jean Monnet Association, the Young Europeans – France, the Maison de l’Europe of Paris and the European Youth Parliament, an European Awareness Day on the 5^th of February, 2018. The day is dedicated to a musical recital “Europe: What a Passion!” followed straightaway by a debate with citizens participating in this outstanding pedagogical experience.

The « European Awareness Days » (EAD) are an original communication format on the EU put into place across Europe through the projects, AwarEU, carried out in the framework of the Jean Monnet programme, and AwarEU, carried out in the framework of Erasmus+. This project gathers academic institutions and thinks tank from the whole European Union, like Italy , Spain, Portugal, Scotland and France, that work together on a long-term project aiming at sensitizing students, their teachers and more generally the education sphere to European issues

“Europe: What a Passion!” is a lively and innovative recital which tells the story of European integration after the Second World War. It engages spectators in the largely untold legend which is nevertheless an important part of their own history, and whose future depends on our conscious and unconscious decisions. A storyteller connects via voice-over twelve well-known European songs, representing twelve milestones in a long and turbulent love affair. The songs and texts are adapted to the transnational and multilinguistic approach of the artistic project: different versions of the spectacle are targeted at different European audiences. In all versions, the twelve steps are illustrated by videos retracing the principal steps of the European construction through original text and graphics.

On the 5th of February, approximately 800 students from Ile-de-France will enjoy this show, however, we would like the latter to be integrated in a more lasting and profitable pedagogical program. Thus, beyond the day of the musical representation, the aim is to provide means to students and their teachers to learn about Europe and the European project, to arouse their curiosity on European matters and empower them by making them directly designing and managing pedagogical projects linked to the European Awareness Days. The Jacques Delors Institute has therefore sought to work in cooperation with other organisations and actors that are experienced in developing and promoting European-wide pedagogical projects to pool all resources, tools and energy possessed by this associative and academic network. Schools and/or teachers interested in the European Awareness Day can solicit interventions from one or more of the partner associations, before or after the musical representation, to further the pedagogical benefit of the EAD on students.

You will find more information on this event, partner associations and their pedagogical offers on this document displaying more thoroughly activities proposed by the associated partners and on the EADs’ presentation, all enclosed to this announcement (all documents are in French)