Last Week in Sweden

These days, we don’t get a lot of good news about democracy. All over the world, power is being taken away from the people, politicians openly question the value of democracy and totalitarian regimes no longer even try to hide their human rights abuses.

Oddly enough at the same time, democracy at the local level is booming (or maybe that’s not so odd). This month, I attended the Democracy Week in the small town of Falun in Sweden. People from across the globe came to present what they’re doing in their own corners of the world, and it was amazing!

As if through some sort of fluke in the space-time continuum, from Falun I could see ancient Athens, where citizens debated their issues in public squares. Maybe the answer to our problem today is simple: let’s talk to each other about the problems we see and let’s try to change our communities for the better.

This is also the goal of our new project, European Public Sphere: to get us talking again. The project is setting out on a Europe-tour to debate the future of the EU. The European Public Sphere will set up shop in public spaces where anyone can join the discussions. More on that here.
Finally, we're proud to present to you our brand new “global newsletter” in cooperation with Swissinfo and people2power. From now on, we’ll bring you stories of participatory democracy and active citizenship from across the world, not only in English, but also in German and French.

All the best,

Caroline Vernaillen

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