61 years ago the Schuman declaration was the starting point of Europe as we know it today.

Comparing the status of Europe at that moment to today, we can only be happy with the progress that has been made so far. We can only gladly cheer “Happy Birthday Europe”.

However, there is still a long way to go!

Europe is still far from having open borders, both in the perception of physical borders, when talking about our brothers in Caucasus, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, even in the Balkans, but also about mental borders that we ourselves raise to others because they were placed in an “inferior” cultural, political, financial, ethnical or other environment.

AEGEE – the European Students’ Forum would like to remind to all relevant stakeholders that we still have a lot of work to do to create a real European Citizenship, not on a document, but in the mentality of all Europeans and to abolish prejudices across our continent.

Happy Birthday Europe! AEGEE wishes you to reach 100 years without any other war. May you be the Europe we all dream of by then!