LMC 2019

The Future Is in Our Hands

Climate, European Union, Future, Identity, Migration, Technology

Voting patterns in Europe show deepening differences both between EU member states and between sectors of their populations. Voters are divided between left and right, liberal and illiberal, new and old member state, East and West and North and South but there is also generational divide. Economic forecasts suggest that the generation currently stepping onto the stage will, for the first time in Europe’s post-war era, be poorer than their parents. While this generation may rebel as usual against their predecessors, they do not necessarily have more liberal values. They will be required to pay for the negligence and indifference of their parents concerning climate change. They will live in a world of rapid technical development, but declining human contact. How do they perceive the most acute of today’s problems and what values guide them in searching for solutions? What longstanding conflicts in the EU will die with the change of generation and what new ones will emerge? How does this emerging generation interpret migration? How does it find the balance between integration and isolation, and between seclusion and contact? Does it see a need for a common European identity and core values?