Collection of Good Practices from European on countering populism
From: Vasilia Filippou
| The partnership, as it’s moving towards the implementation of the project, has collected good practices from all partners’ countries on countering populism. Cyprus, participates in the EU Youth Dialogue, with the Cyprus Youth Council, the Youth Board of Cyprus and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Youth. This EU mechanism that gives the opportunity to young people and decision-makers to discuss youth related issues. The dialogue is taking place in the framework oof the EU Youth Strategy 2019-2027, which focuses on three main core areas ‘connect, engage and empower’ and encourages cooperation between the EU countries in respect to all issues concerning young people. Such initiative, protects the European values within the countries participate. Germany, presented a Franco- German project, created by students and volunteers of the Franco-German Youth Office (FGYO). The FGYO is an international government organization dedicated to the German-French cooperation. With the FGYO’s support thirty-five students from France and Germany created a French-German blog called “Voices against Racism and Populism”. It is a multimedia platform that shares articles, podcasts and short films with the aim to raise awareness across boarders about “existing problems of racism and populism with our society”. The target group are mostly students and young people. Italian Parliament established in 2021 the commission against racism. On the proposal of Senator for life Liliana Serge, it is responsible for collecting material, elaborating studies and proposals on the phenomena of racism, violence and hatred that occur in Italy. To date, the Commission has met 54 times and currently, its most important result has been to draw up guidelines on which the work of Parliament and the Government should be based to combat these phenomena. Born between the divisions (the right, at the time of the vote for its establishment, abstained), the Commission is gathering and increasing number of appreciations from Italian citizens. In Spain, there is an online magazine “La Maldita” which is fighting fake news against populism. The magazine founded by Julio Montes, who has worked in television news for a decade, and Clara Jimenez Cruz, also a journalist and member of the Advisory Board of the International Fact-Checking Network. They are two journalists with experience in the fight against misinformation and disinformation. They focus on controlling misinformation and public discourse through fact-checking techniques and data journalism. This non-profit association has three main goals. First goal, is to monitor and control political discourse and promote transparency in public and private institutions. Second goal is to check and fight disinformation. Last goal, is to promote media literacy and technological tools to create and aware community that can resist disinformation and be active in all fields. It is public and easily accessible via the Internet. In Netherlands, major Dutch corporations including Shell, Unilever, Philips and dairy produce giant FrieslandCampnina have joined forces in a PR campaign to showcase national talents in a bid to roll back gloom and populism. The initiative coincided with the run-up to general elections that are seen as a bellwether for nationalism in Europe in a critical year following last year’s Brexit vote and the election victory of Donald Trump. The PR campaign-whose launch coincided with the tense election campaign- will point to Dutch success in meeting five challenges of the future, the financial daily Het Financieele Dagblad said. Called “Global problems, Dutch Solutions”, it will look at how Dutch enterprises are enhancing farm yields and water management, coping with demographic ageing, the demands of urbanization and the switch to renewable energy. The European head of Unilever, Jan Zijderveld, told the paper that “populism is a symptom of lack of progress”. He added: “To combat populism, we need a new business model, a point on the horizon to which we can work over the next decade”. Follow us on this journey to develop new and innovative initiatives on countering populism in European countries! 1. Cyprus , C. Y. O. (2022). Ευρωπαϊκός Διάλογος με τη Νεολαία. – Youth Policy. Retrieved June 30, 2022, 2.https://youthpolicy.onek.org.cy/symmetochi/eu-youth-dialogue/ 3.https://stimmengegenrassismus.blog/2020/12/03/das-projekt/ 4.https://www.swfr.de/internationales/der-internationale-club/stimmen-gegen-rassismus-und-populismus 5.Portada – Maldita.es – Journalism so you don’t get screwed (n/d). Maldita.es. Retrieved June 23, 2022, from https://maldita.es/ |
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