For Many Years from Tomorrow

For those who have placed their hopes in the European Union, and who believe that the EU can play a decisive role in confronting the challenges that we face, today the EU’s future — and its very nature — are at stake. An important part of the planet’s future will be played out in Europe: It is a future that begins tomorrow, and which will have effects for many years to come. Drawing on international youth activist networks, Giorgio Brizio collected the voices of twenty-seven mostly very young activists, with one contribution from each EU country. Each of them has written an intervention that starts from a local story and develops it to the European dimension. These are twenty-seven stories that each speak to us urgently. The elections taking place in 2024 will be the last ones that can be used to achieve the goal of keeping the Earth’s climate within +1.5 °C of the industrial-age average. All the relevant experts tell us that the actions that we decide on in these next few years will be crucial; after that point, it will be too late, and we will face a much worse situation. But the choices we make will have a decisive impact — especially on the lives of those who are now aged twenty or younger. There is a galaxy of young activists in Europe who probably represent the most committed part of civil society. Active, informed, aware, and keen to take their destiny into their own hands, these young people are also radically international. After all, they are well-aware that the problems they raise — the closely intertwined questions of climate, people’s rights, and migration — are not reducible to local solutions, but concern the whole of humanity. The effects of the choices we make tomorrow will mainly fall on their shoulders. Hearing their voice is a must. Birk Albæk, Henrik Arhold, U¯la Balas?evic?iu¯te?, Anete Bike, Sea´n Binder, Mia Bradic´, O´scar Camps, Matthew Caruana Galizia, Bianca Castro, Karoli´na Fabianova´, Adela´ Hudcova´, Athanasios Karakitsos, Nadia Alexandria Kendall, Mamadou Kouassi, Annika Kruse, Eline Le Menestrel, Emma Liiv, Maja Lejla Mo´cza´r, Simon Moe, Karolina Mosiej-Zambrano, Nicholas Panayi, Antonia Pi^slariu, Emma Reynolds, Tanya Rydell, Elia Tileva, Niila-Juha´n Valkeapa¨a¨, Lucas Winnips.