Discussion Highlights:

• Europe’s Democratic Challenges: How can the EU defend its core values against rising authoritarianism?
• Ukraine’s Struggle and Global Freedom: Why does Ukraine’s resistance matter beyond its borders?
• Populism and Economic Inequality: How have neoliberal policies contributed to democratic erosion?
• The Role of Transnational Civil Society: Can grassroots movements counter authoritarian trends?
• Technology, Capitalism, and Democracy: How does the digital age reshape political power?
• Serbia’s Grassroots Protests: Why is Serbia’s movement for democracy significant for Europe?
• EU Foreign Policy and Strategic Autonomy: Can Europe navigate an era of geopolitical realignment?
• France’s Constitutional Crisis: What does the future hold for the French Republic’s democratic model?

Niccolò Milanese is a political theorist, activist, and co-founder of European Alternatives, a transnational movement advocating for democracy and equality beyond nation-states. He has co-authored Citizens of Nowhere: How to Save Europe from Itself and edited Illiberal Democracies in Europe: An Authoritarian Response to the Crisis of Liberalism. Milanese regularly advises cultural, political, and activist organizations on issues of European democracy, citizenship, and generational change.

Find more about European Alternatives at euroalter.com.

• European Alternatives’ Initiatives: euroalter.com
• Niccolò Milanese’s Books & Articles: Citizens of Nowhere, Illiberal Democracies in Europe
• Institute for Human Sciences (IWM): iwm.at

Ivan Vejvoda  is Head of the Europe's Futures program at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM Vienna) implemented in partnership with ERSTE Foundation. The program is dedicated to the cultivation of knowledge and the generation of ideas addressing pivotal challenges confronting Europe and the European Union: nexus of borders and migration, deterioration in rule of law and democracy and European Union’s enlargement prospects.

The Institute for Human Sciences is an institute of advanced studies in the humanities and social sciences. Founded as a place of encounter in 1982 by a young Polish philosopher, Krzysztof Michalski, and two German colleagues in neutral Austria, its initial mission was to create a meeting place for dissenting thinkers of Eastern Europe and prominent scholars from the West.

Since then it has promoted intellectual exchange across disciplines, between academia and society, and among regions that now embrace the Global South and North. The IWM is an independent and non-partisan institution, and proudly so. All of our fellows, visiting and permanent, pursue their own research in an environment designed to enrich their work and to render it more accessible within and beyond academia.

For further information about the Institute:

https://www.iwm.at/