We are delighted to announce the second phase of our regional project called EU&me, which we will be implementing over the next five months in ten countries – UK, Azerbaijan, Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro, Macedonia, Romania, Armenia.

The project aims to create greater mutual understanding between young people in the countries of South East Europe and the UK by exploring the issues of identity and culture. It will explore the extent to which young people's sense of identity is influenced by history, religion, culture, ethnicity, gender, age and 'being European'. It will also capture a range of different opinions as participating countries have different positions in relation to EU: members, recent members, accession countries and those expecting to become accession countries, EU-oriented in wider Europe context.

The EU&me project will provide various tools such as video films, video conferences, TV programmes, debates and web resources. The views and perceptions of young people in each participating country will be captured and edited onto a five minute video, which will afterwards be broadcast in all ten countries. There will be a series of video conference discussions between country teams as well as in-country TV discussions and a series of encounters that engage young debaters from South East Europe with their counterparts and young officials from the European Union.

There will be a series of TV programmes which the British Council is organising in partnership with ANS TV in a free debate format.  The programmes, with the participation of young people and invited experts, will cover such themes as “What is Identity and how does it relate to the political process”, “How and to what extent does the EU’s Single Market affect my identity”, “Common, foreign & security policy (CFSP) and Cohesion, me and my identity”, “How and to what extent does the Euro and Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) affect my identity” and “EU Enlargement and the future of Europe” etc.

The first EU&me TV debate programme can be seen at 18:15 on ANS TV on Friday 16 February 2007.
You can catch the rest of the series every Friday at the same time until 16, March 2007.

Criteria for Participants of EU&Me events :

• Age groups –20-25
• Participants must reflect diversity – regions, rural/city, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, disability, income, lifestyle
• English not a criterion for the first phase
• Participants must be articulate and coherent in argument, not necessarily open minded
• Participant profiles must be agreed by all countries so that the groups are coherent and can be successfully brought together for the videoconferencing
• Each country can be flexible in how it recruits participants
• Invite high profile guests to observe the discussions