The Council of Europe unveils the European Space for Citizenship Education at a high-level conference in Berlin – Yurika.R

The Council of Europe Education Department organised a conference in Berlin at Humboldt University on 17-18 October to launch the preparatory phase of the European Space for Citizenship Education. The event marked the dual 75th anniversaries of the Council of Europe and German Basic Law (Constitution), centred around debates on how democracy should be built into education systems through quality citizenship education.

Simona Koß, Member of the German Bundestag and Chair of the Federal Agency for Civic Agency (BpB)`s Board of Trustees and Matjaž Gruden, Director for Democracy, Council of Europe delivered key remarks at the opening.  Ms Koß outlined the serious challenges societies are facing including extreme right populism which made significant gains in recent state elections in Germany, and she underlined that promoting civic education was a permanent job to counter this effect, not just in times of crises. 

Spanish MP and Chair of the subcommittee on culture, education and democratic values at the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Luz Martinez Seijo and Chair of the Council of Europe Steering Committee for Education (CDEDU) Marie-Anne Persoons, as well as Director General of the Office for Education within the Authority for School and Vocational Training in Hamburg Thorsten Altenburg-Hack and Secretary General of the European Movement Bernd Hütteman, participated in the high-level panel discussion on the issues European societies need to address and how citizenship education can strengthen a culture of democracy. 

The conference brought together some 75 participants and included round table discussions on the role of civil society and youth in the European Space for Citizenship Education led by Georg Pirker from Democracy and Human Rights Education in Europe (DARE network, AdB).  The new German translation of the Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture was presented, led by Bernt Gebauer, Hessian Ministry of Education, Wiesbaden and participants shared good practices from European countries on lessons learned from using the Reference Framework. The esteemed academic Herman Josef Abs also delivered a keynote on the RFCDC.

This event is part of the co-creation process of developing the Council of Europe’s European Space for Citizenship Education over the next two years and was co-funded by Germany and the Council of Europe.

Programme