Experts from around the world gathered in Florence for the 14th edition of the State of the Union conference to discuss the priorities of the next European term.
As the upcoming European elections draw near, debating the most urgent issues facing the bloc has become increasingly crucial. Economic policies, as well as the digital and green transitions, topped the agenda of the 14th edition of the State of the Union conference.
Speakers from around the world flocked to the Italian city of Florence for the two-day event to reflect on what has been achieved so far and what Europe should focus on in the next political term.
“Many of these panels are dealing with the technical issues involved but what unites them is that there must be some vision for Europe’s future. A vision that can bring Europeans together because if Europeans are not united. Not able to generate the kind of energy necessary to tackle these challenges then no technical solution is going to be enough,” Erik Jones, Director of the Robert Schuman Centre, told Euronews.
The need for a European defence and the future of enlargement are some of the questions triggered by the new geopolitical order caused by the war in Ukraine. Yet, for some officials, EU elections will be about defending European values and democracies and the fight against misinformation.
“Espionage, disinformation, AI, abuse and so on they are targeting our trust and they seek to decrease the trust of people in Democratic systems and it’s dangerous so I hope we will not have some dramatically bad lessons to be learned from these elections,” Věra Jourová, Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency, said.
“But even if not and even if it will be more or less okay, only some manipulation is inevitable we will have to do more in the future because trust is the most valuable value we have”.
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