On the weekend of 2-4 March 2018, 40 Members of National Parliaments from 15 different EU member states gathered in Paris to discuss, reflect and share views, perspectives, uncertainties, and visions on the topic of “the future of EU prosperity and the modernization challenge”.

Members of Parliament from across Europe, including Germany, France, Poland, Austria, Greece and Sweden, from the liberal to the socialist camp and representing voices from both established and emerging parties, spent three days in conversation around existential European and national challenges such as the definition of concepts of prosperity, inclusiveness and fairness. The workshop was nourished by high-level experts from diverse backgrounds, featuring the voices of Gilles Babinet, Digital Champion of France, Hannes Kunz, President of the Institute of Integrated Economic Research, and Luiz de Mello, OECD. It provided a dialogue space for politicians to reflect and identify implications for crucial policy areas such as taxation, employment, education, infrastructure, and the cross-cutting issue of the pursuit of transparency in governance.

Connecting and facilitating the engagement of MPs for cross-border cooperation around issues of national relevance, the MED helped identify a number of initiatives for the development of which the network will provide a backbone. It will do so in the MED spirit of political conversation across ideologies, between different countries and political perspectives and in order to develop a deeper and more refined understanding of the common political challenges we face as Europeans.

“I think, what we can learn from this, is that political courage is rewarded and taking a risk as a politician pays off.” – MP, member of the Mercator European Dialogue, 2 March 2018.

Pictures of the event can be viewed here.