Round table: "Challenges of Europe"
In order to encourage the general public to think about the current biggest challenge of Europe, we are organising a round table entitled "Challenges of Europe", which will be held on April 7th at 17h, in cooperation with our partners, the Italian cultural institute, Lauba and UNHCR.
The round table venue is Lauba, prilaz Baruna Filipovića 23a, as part of the exhibition "From Afar" by photographer Alessandro Penso, whose photographic eye has followed the theme of the refugee crisis from its beginning.
In 2016, the European Union has still not found a compelling common response to the challenges that the arrival and integration of hundreds of thousands of refugees present. The term "refugee crisis" is among the main topics of public debate, as a consequence of an unprecedented number of refugees and migrants coming across the Mediterranean Sea or Southeast Europe, seeking asylum in the European Union. The majority of those people are from Syria and to a lesser extent from Afghanistan and Iraq, but also from Sub-Saharan Africa, Pakistan and the Western Balkans. The European Union and its member states are struggling and searching for ways to handle this "crisis of a refugee wave" in several areas: through financial aid, help for countries along the route and for countries with large numbers of refugees and asylum seekers. Approaching the issue of the refugee crisis, border policies will be discussed as well as the re-establishing border control inside the Schengen Area, setting and (un)accepting refugee quotas throughout Europe, solving paperwork, refugees’ and migrants’ documents, integration of refugees into European societies, including the issue of stratification that has emerged among EU member states, which is questioning solidarity within the Union.
The round table participants are
Giuseppe di Caro - UNHCR representative in Croatia,
Thomas E. Schultze - German Ambassador to Croatia,
Branko Baričević - Head of European Commission Representation in Croatia,
representative of "Doctors without Borders" and
Alessandro Penso - the author of the exhibition.
Together with representatives of European institutions, but also with the participation of students and the public, we will take different perspectives to analyse what is probably the biggest social crisis of the 21st century, in order to reach a more comprehensive understanding of its causes and consequences, and to consider the future of Europe together.
