EU|UK Annual Conference 2024
2024-06-17 10:30 - 17:00 (Europe/London) | Online
The annual EU-UK Forum conference will address the evolving dynamics of EU-UK relations in a period marked by improved dialogue and cooperation. It will focus on issues such as the development of diplomatic and trade relations, boosting Europe’s economy and competitiveness and the growing importance of security and defence cooperation.
Keynote speaker: Maroš Šefcovic, Executive Vice-President, European Green Deal, Interinstitutional Relations and Foresight, European Commission

UK in a Changing Europe Annual Conference 2024
2024-06-18 09:00 - 17:00 | 1 Great George St, London SW1P 3AA
Join us in Westminster for the UK in a Changing Europe annual conference. Because most of the political parties aren’t, we will be reflecting on the future of the UK and its relationship with the European Union. Eight years on from the decision to leave the EU and just two weeks out from the general election, we are assembling expert panels of leading academics, policymakers and journalists to discuss the changing economic, political and social landscapes of both the UK and Europe.
It will include a keynote speech from Lawrence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King’s College London, and an introduction to UK in a Changing Europe’s latest report on UK-EU relations from UKICE Director Anand Menon.

Talking Europe, Ethics & Standards in Public Life
2024-06-24 19:30 - 20:30
with Dominic Grieve KC, former MP and Attorney General, Vice-President of the European Movement
livestream on X (Twitter), Facebook and YouTube

After the Elections, Where Now for Relations between the EU and Brexit Britain? with David Henig
2024-07-15 19:00 - 20:15 | Online
David Henig is Director of the UK Trade Policy Project. A leading authority on the development of UK Trade Policy post Brexit, he places this in the context of developments in EU and global trade policy on which he also researches and writes.

Parliamentary Recess
2024-07-30 08:00 - 2024-09-02 17:00

Grassroots for Europe Round Table #48: Brexit and After, Views from Ireland
2024-09-10 17:00 - 18:30 | Online
For this session, involving views from Ireland, we agreed it would be good to talk with friends in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Our colleague Jane Morrice, Hon. President of the European Movement Northern Ireland, former Deputy Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and former Head of the European Commission Office in Northern Ireland has kindly agreed to chair.
Registration is free but donations are welcome. We’ll share the Zoom link with all who are registered 24 hours before the event.

Party Conferences
2024-09-12 08:00 - 2024-10-07 09:00

Power-to-the-People Webinar “All aboard! – How can citizen assemblies shape our democracies?”
2024-09-12 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
This next “Power to the People” webinar will introduce the European Peoples’ Assembly, set up by the Democratic Odyssey, which will start on 27th September in Athens. The initiative is supported by a broad coalition that includes Another Europe is Possible, European Alternatives, European University Institute, Europe Calling, Mehr Demokratie, Citizens Takeover Europe, and ECI Campaign.
Speakers are:
Art O’Leary, Chief Executive of the Electoral Commission of Ireland who has organized the Ireland’s assembly on abortion rights
Professor Kalypso Nicolaidis, Chair in Global Affairs at the Florence School of Transnational Governance and co-lead of the Democratic Odyssey project
Niccolo Milanese, founding director of European Alternatives, a civil society organisation promoting democracy, equality and culture beyond the nation state
Sarah Händel, Board member of Mehr Demokratie e.V., one of Germany’s leading NGOs for deliberative democracy
Brett Hennig, Co-founder and director of the Sortition Foundation, campaigning to institute the use of democratic lotteries (also called sortition) in government
Alexiane Terrochaire – – Barbançon, Executive Board Member of the Young European Federalists (JEF Europe)
Clare Farrell (tbc), co-founder and spokesperson of Extinction Rebellion
David Van Reybrouck (tbc), writer, playwright, journalist, archaeologist and historian who founded the G1000 initiative, which campaigns for democratic innovation in Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain.
A citizen representative from the EU’s Conference on the Future of Europe (tbc)
The event will be interpreted in English, German, Greek, Italian, French, Czech, Portuguese, Polish, Lithuanian and Bulgarian.

BREMAINERS ASK – SPECIAL ONLINE WEBINAR
2024-09-19 17:00 - 18:00 | Online
We are delighted to feature our first member of the House of Commons – Labour MP for Walthamstow, and Chair of the Labour Movement for Europe, Stella Creasy.
Stella has suggested a special webinar, hosted by our chair, Sue Wilson. The Zoom call link will be supplied in due course.
We are most grateful to Stella for making herself available for this very special online Bremainers Ask session and we hope you will join us.
Please register your interest in attending by email by Tuesday 17 September to allow for the administration of this event. enquiries@bremaininspain.com

What can Labour really do about #Brexit? with Peter Foster
2024-10-07 19:00 - 20:15 | Online
Peter Foster, author of What Went Wrong with Brexit, and What We Can Do About It (Canongate, 2023), explores how far the recently elected Labour government can reset relations with the EU given the ‘red lines’ set by Sir Keir Starmer ruling out rejoining the EU single market, a customs union or accepting Free Movement.
Peter Foster is the public policy editor of the Financial Times. His current brief covers all aspects of UK policy, including higher education, skills, investment and the implementation of Brexit.

EU-UK relations: Towards deeper cooperation in defence and security
2024-10-17 10:00 - 11:00 | Zoom, United Kingdom
This online Policy Dialogue will discuss the prospects and options for a deeper EU-UK relationship on defence and security, access to defence markets, and the strengthening of NATO’s European pillar.
With Juha Jokela (Programme Director, European Union and Strategic Competition, Finnish Institute of International Affairs) & Richard G Whitman (Professor of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent)

Brexit and British Farming, with Liz Webster (Save British Farming)
2024-11-17 17:00 - 18:15 | Online
Liz Webster is the founder of Save British Farming, a group which represents farmers, consumers and members of the food production industry. The group campaigns against the lowering of food and animal welfare standards by trade deals which will savage Britain by handing away control to global producers to dump their low standard food on the British public.

A Closer UK-EU Relationship, with John McStravick
2024-11-27 19:00 - 20:15 | Widcombe Social Club, Widcombe Hill, Bath BA2 6AA
What next for post-Brexit UK under a new government? At a time where there is increasing media speculation of a UK-EU reset, this talk will explore the current relationship, look at recent public polling and political positions on Brexit-related matters, and consider the prospects of closer ties between the UK and EU.

Bath for Europe welcome John McStravick who will give a talk and answer your questions at what promises to be a fascinating evening.

Britain is still in Europe
2024-11-27 19:00 - 21:00 | https://oxfordforeurope.org/events/britain-is-still-in-europe/
Prof Timothy Garton Ash will ask where Britain will stand in relation to Europe under a new British government, and with a new US president – and where it should stand.
Timothy Garton Ash CMG FRSA is Professor of European Studies at the European Studies Centre, St Anthony’s College, Oxford, and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is internationally known as an expert on the recent history of Europe, with special reference to Central and Eastern Europe. He has the unusual distinction of being celebrated as an academic, as an author and as a journalist. He is renowned for his passionate belief in the cause of Europe and his articulate opposition to Brexit.
At the meeting some of his books will be available for sale and Prof Garton Ash has kindly agreed to sign them.

Autocracy, Inc: with Anne Applebaum
2024-12-02 19:00 - 20:00 | Online
In the 20th century most autocrats were brutal dictators whose main goal was to control a domestic population. But in the 21st century autocracy has become much more sophisticated and ambitious in its scope. Having reported on different forms of authoritarian power over the past three decades, from the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe to the threat of 21st-century disinformation, Pulitzer-Prize winning author Anne Applebaum is a leading authority on autocracy. Join us for an alarming account of the rise of the autocrats, how they work together to undermine the democratic world, and how we should organise to defeat them.
The conversation will be followed by a live Q & A.

Europe's Democracy in Deeper Danger
2024-12-03 17:00 - 18:30 | Zoom, United Kingdom
Within the EU, autocratic contagion, recently checked in Poland, has spread from Hungary to other neighbouring countries. Authoritarian populist parties of the Right have made gains at European and national levels and threaten to make more. Trump’s recent victory in the USA poses a lethal threat to America’s democracy, fractures Western support for Ukraine and borders on open collusion with Putin’s genocidal imperial aggression. The new UK government appears to understand the challenge, but Brexit and its legacy continue to hamper the response. For pro-Europeans in the UK, regaining the trust of Europe may have seemed the key condition for ending the blight of Brexit; now, the priority may shift towards urgent, committed solidarity with democratic Europe (and democrats worldwide) in the defence of Europe’s democracy.
Our three panellists each bring highly relevant insights, engagement and experiences to our discussion of this tangle of dangers.
Peter Geoghegan is an outstanding, award-winning Irish investigative journalist who has done groundbreaking work on the US-UK (and US-UK-Russian) nexus of dark money and oligarchic business power, notably as key drivers of Brexit.
Dr Nina Shengelia is in the forefront of citizen efforts, notably in the digital domain, to combat current Russian hybrid assaults on Georgia’s democracy and defend its geopolitical independence as a candidate for EU membership.
Wojciech Przybylski, a Polish political scientist and journalist is editor-in-chief of Visegrad Insight, a major investigative, reporting and analysis site for politics across the Central European countries.

Violence against Women and Girls
2024-12-04 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
An opportunity to hear from three speakers who bring expertise from diverse fields, including academia, activism, journalism, and media. Followed by Q&A.
Chair: Dorothy Herson, YEM Vice President
Author, former lawyer, journalist and Editor at Cambridge University Press
Panellists:
Catherine Joy White – gender advisor for the United Nations (UN); advocate for gender equity in media and storytelling
Dr Fiona Vera Gray – academic at London Met University, currently working on UKRI-funded research into the harms of sexual violence; campaigner against violence towards women and girls
Cecilia Jastrzembska – president of the Young European Movement (YEM), journalist and feminist advocate.

The Next Chapter; Where is Europe headed? Who leads it?
2024-12-05 17:00 - 18:30 | Online
Today (27 Nov 2024), the European Parliament has confirmed the new EU Commission led by Ursula von der Leyen. This concludes a five-month-long power struggle and sets Europe on a new path.
Where that path leads and who will actually lead the EU on it, is still unclear.
Here’s why: The new and old Commission President von der Leyen made clear that she intends to lead the EU with a democratic platform, consisting of her conservative EPP, the social democratic S&D, the liberals in Renew, and, the Greens/EFA group. At the same time, her EPP with its leader Manfred Weber has repeatedly created majorities against this very platform with the three far-right groups in the Parliament. Raffaele Fitto, a member of the right-wing extremist Fratelli d’Italia gets a top position in the new EU Commission, despite his group voting against von der Leyen.
What sounds like an episode of House of Cards will very much determine the lives of every single European in the next four years.
Because, on topics like action against climate change and nature destruction, on a social Europe with its own resources, on the defence of individual freedoms and on the rule of law, the EU is deeply divided.
This is why we invited Professor Alberto Alemanno to our next Europe Calling webinar. Alberto is Jean Monnet professor of EU law, at HEC Paris, and the founder of The Good Lobby. He is one of the most outspoken voices when it comes to European democracy, and how to defend and improve it. In July, he wrote, “Ursula von der Leyen has lost Europe’s trust. She doesn’t deserve a second term”.
We want to hear from Alberto, what he thinks about the path the EU took over the last year, where it will head and who will lead it. And maybe most importantly, what the role of citizens like all of us can be here.

Common Ground: Scotland’s European Path
2024-12-05 19:00 - 20:30 | Online
An exclusive online discussion with former Labour MEP David Martin and Alyn Smith, for the former SNP MEP and MP.

In a time of political division, this event shines a spotlight on one of the few spaces in Scottish public life where individuals from diverse political backgrounds come together in unity. David and Alyn will discuss their shared belief that Scotland’s future lies at the heart of Europe and how we can work across party and constitutional lines to achieve that vision.
David Clarke, chair of the European Movement in Scotland (EMiS) says:
“Alyn and David are passionate Europeans who share similar views about building an unstoppable momentum that sees us eventually rejoin the EU. They will discuss how that momentum is built and the competing claims of independence or union as the most likely route back to Europe.”

The UK EU reset - what would be an ambitious outcome?
2024-12-10 09:00 - 11:00 | Scotland House Brussels 6 Rond-Point Robert Schuman 1040 Bruxelles Belgium
Our panel of EU and UK experts will delve into the possibilities and challenges ahead, exploring what an ambitious outcome could include. We will be joined by David McAllister MEP, Vladimir Dlouhy (Eurochambres), Tanja Buzek (Vice-Chair of the EU Domestic Advisory Group, EESC) and Federica di Sario (Politico). Mike Buckley (Independent Commission) will present outcomes from our work. Please join us for the discussion and networking after the event. Tea and coffee will be provided.

Eradicating VAWG; Empowering Europe
2025-01-07 17:00 - 18:30 | Online
A panel discussion on the prevalence of and increase of violence against women and girls (VAWG) across the UK and Europe before YEM’s campaign launch on 23rd January. Panellists will discuss how to mitigate this rise and how eradicating VAWG can empower both women and society as a whole. Followed by Q&A and discussion.
Chair: Cecilia Jastrzembska, YEM President & Co-Director, European Movement Board & National Council.
Speakers:
Dorothy Herson: YEM Vice President, Editor, Cambridge Press, author and former lawyer.
Hannah Phillips: Intersectional gender equality policy expert, Civility Commission Manager, Jo Cox Foundation, former Gender Parity Consultant, United Nations.
Sara Harris: Domestic Violence and Abuse Practitioner at Leeds Women’s Aid. Women’s Night Safe Space Support Worker for ‘Women Friendly Leeds. Former Ask for Angela Leeds Coordinator.

More Chicanery with the Digital Immigration System in Brexit Britain
2025-01-12 17:00 - 18:15
More fun and games from the Home Office! EU citizens in the UK who have been here since before 1989 are now having to apply for an eVisa. Cosi Doerfel-Hill (the3million) provides an update on UK policy on residency rights for EU nationals after Brexit

Europe Calling webinair: ‘Hostile Takeover?
2025-01-13 19:00 - 21:00 | Online
How tech billionaires are undermining our democracies & what the EU can do about it: We take a close look at the tech billionaires, their platforms, algorithms and strategies in the first Europe Calling webinar of 2025. We will also talk about freedom of expression and censorship and what the EU can and should do in concrete terms now.

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIvfu6rqDMsGdXsb0rUe-NEim-jYeBbQQnw
2025-01-15 18:30 - 20:00 | Online
Alex Hall Hall will discuss the challenges we face in 2025, but also the seeds of hope that are there to be found and what we can do to help nurture them.

What does a Trump Presidency mean for Europe?
2025-01-16 19:00 - 21:00 | Online
Join the European Movement in Scotland for a timely and thought-provoking webinar just days before the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States. This special event will bring together a distinguished panel of diplomats, academics, and activists to discuss the key challenges and opportunities Europe may encounter over the next four years as it navigates a rapidly changing global political landscape.
Chaired by EMiS Vice President Alyn Smith, this event will feature a keynote discussion with Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, the former British Ambassador to both the United States and the European Union. Lord Kerr brings unparalleled insight into transatlantic relations and the complexities of European diplomacy.
With topics ranging from the future of EU-US relations to pressing global issues like climate change, trade, and international security, this event will provide a platform for meaningful dialogue and fresh perspectives. Additional speakers will be announced soon, promising a rich and diverse exploration of what lies ahead for Europe.

The Erasmus+ Programme: what the UK has to gain by rejoining
2025-01-18 15:00 - 16:30 | Online and in person, Erasmus Darwin House, Lichfield, United Kingdom
Erasmus+ provides funding for education, training and sport. It has a particular focus on youth work, but it also provides funding for activities aimed at all ages. It is not just a university exchange programme and we intend to show how valuable it was for communities such as those across Staffordshire, what was lost when the UK pulled out and what we have to gain by rejoining it.
If you want more opportunities for learning, development and sport in your community join us for this talk to find out how Erasmus+ could have helped and join the campaign to get it back.
Speakers – Cecilia Jastrzembska YEM President,
Matt Pointon TUC/WMCA Skills Partnership Lead at the TUC,
Kanika Safiya – EPA working in the education sector,
Klajdi Selimi – former President YEM

Break The Silence / End The Violence
2025-01-23 18:00 - 20:30 | Europe House, 32 Smith Square, SW1P 3EU London
Join YEM for our much anticipated campaign to raise awareness of, destigmatise discussion of and combat gender based violence (GBV) and champion gender equality. With GBV declared a national emergency in the UK and levels rising in several EU member states, this discussion comes at a pivotal time. An expert panel will examine the implementation of the Istanbul Convention across the EU and performance against Labour’s pledge to tackle violence against women and girls (VAWG) in the UK.
Followed by discussion and Q&A as well as a networking reception.
Attendees will also have the opportunity to explore materials from the official Break The Silence exhibition, a joint venture with multi-award winning artist Ally Zlatar.
Chair: Emma Nelson, Presenter, journalist, podcaster and broadcaster. Currently reporting for Monocle 24 and former BBC reporter.
Speakers:
🎤 Frances Fitzgerald: former MEP and Vice President of the EPP Group, Co-Rapporteur of the EU Directive Criminalising VAWG ratified earlier this year, and member of the Gender Equality Advisory Board. Prior to her election to the Dáil, Frances served as Chair of the National Women’s Council of Ireland (1988-92) and Vice President of the European Women’s Lobby, as well as serving as Tánaiste (2016-17).
🎤 Cecilia Jastrzembska: YEM President & Co-Director. Senior Policy Advisor with six years experience in central UK government,
🎤 Sanna Lepola: gender equality expert and Director-General for Parliamentary Democracy Partnerships, European Parliament, which fosters cooperation and legislative dialogue with national parliaments by providing advice and expertise to political bodies, members and administrative entities.
NB 🪪 Bring ID and arrive at 5:45 to clear security and avoid disruption. Latecomers will have to wait for the current speaker to finish. If you cannot attend please email Europe House ASAP. This event is already 75% subscribed.

Will the Brexit headache ever end?
2025-01-23 19:00 - 20:00 | Online
Most of Britain might have expected Brexit to be a phrase of the past by now, buried in our pre-Covid subconscious. But, as we approach the eighth anniversary of the referendum, Brexit-related issues are just as prominent and divisive as ever. Critics of Brexit are more vocal than ever and concerns abound about food imports, tightened rules for EU holidaymakers and security.
Join The Independent’s Chief Political Commentator John Rentoul as he discusses all things Brexit past, present and future with a panel of experts.

The urgency of now: what can and should we do to bolster European security and defence
2025-02-12 18:00 - 19:30 | London School of Economics and Political Science Houghton Street London WC2A 2AE
Donald Trump’s return to the White House accelerates an historic shift in the nature of transatlantic relations since 1945, with an urgent need for Europe to provide much more effectively for its own security and defence in a disrupted and dangerous world. A major international academic and a leading EU policy practitioner will discuss what needs to be done. (This is an in-person AND online public event)

Erasmus+: what schools need to get back
2025-02-13 16:00 - 17:00 | Online
Ray Kirtley, Chair of the UK Global Learning Association for Schools (UKGLAS), will talk about everything that our schools have lost as a result of the UK’s withdrawal from Erasmus Plus, the world’s largest and most diverse programme of educational and youth opportunity – and the benefits they would get if we re-enter the programme. We will share knowledge about the few remaining educational links and partnerships between the UK and other European countries, what can be done to rebuild, and what the prospects may be for regaining access to Erasmus Plus.
