WhyEurope is a non-partisan and independent non-profit organization, which was founded in 2016 in

Freiburg im Breisgau Freiburg im Breisgau or simply Freiburg is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fourth-largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Its built-up area has a population of abou ...

, Germany. Since September 2017, WhyEurope is an officially registered association based in

Tübingen Tübingen (; ) is a traditional college town, university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer (Neckar), Ammer rivers. about one in ...

, Germany. It has approximately 30 members from over 10 European states.

Background and history

The initiative was founded by three students, who shared a concern about the rise of euro-scepticism and right-wing-populism. The outcome of the

Brexit Brexit (, a portmanteau of "Britain" and "Exit") was the Withdrawal from the European Union, withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU). Brexit officially took place at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February ...

referendum was the trigger for them to become active. They decided to publish pictures with simple pro-European messages on

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

and

Instagram Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...

Communication style

WhyEurope has adopted a communication style they refer to as “Positive

Populism Populism is a essentially contested concept, contested concept used to refer to a variety of political stances that emphasize the idea of the "common people" and often position this group in opposition to a perceived elite. It is frequently a ...

”. The founders describe the approach as simple, emotional and personal. They refrain from including difficult, political or legal terms in their slogans and make their messages as catchy and short as possible. WhyEurope trigger positive emotions in their audience by connecting political issues to every-day topics such as love or happiness. They believe that ''Positive Populism'' is to be seen as a simple and emotional communication style, but sustains a foundation of hard facts and evidence. In contrary to actual negative populists, they want to provide factual evidence and explanations for their claims. WhyEurope considers Positive Populism an approach to opposing current populist and

extremist Extremism is "the quality or state of being extreme" or "the advocacy of extreme measures or views". The term is primarily used in a political or religious sense to refer to an ideology that is considered (by the speaker or by some implied shar ...

movements.

Independence

Since their foundation, Why Europe has emphasized their character as a non-partisan and independent initiative. Despite being in contact with actors of the European Union, they have stated their distance to the EU institutions.

Relationship to other initiatives

WhyEurope has had a number of cooperation with other pro-European initiatives. Since beginning of 2016, Benedikt Kau and Hans-Christoph Schlüter were in contact with Daniel Röder and Sabine Röder when they launched the demonstrations under the name

Pulse of Europe Pulse of Europe is a pro-European citizen's initiative, founded in Frankfurt, Germany by the end of 2016. It aims at "encouraging citizens of the European Union to speak out publicly in favour of a pan-European identity". As Europe is facing de ...

. Pulse of Europe adopted the campaign and the slogan of the campaign “Blijf bij ons” focusing on the Dutch General elections. Together, the initiatives mobilized ten thousands of people joining pro-European demonstrations. Further cooperation included projects with the

Young European Federalists Young European Federalists (, JEF) is a political youth organisation. Active in most European countries, it seeks to promote European integration through the strengthening and democratisation of the European Union (EU). JEF has close ties to th ...

and

Laute Europäer Laute is a river of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is a right tributary of the Innerste. The Laute rises in the vicinity of Hahnenklee in the Upper Harz and discharges about {{cvt, 6, km later into the Innerste in Lautenthal. The source is at an elev ...

Reception

On 31 January,

Marine Le Pen Marion Anne Perrine "Marine" Le Pen (; born 5 August 1968) is a French lawyer and politician of the far-right National Rally, National Rally party (RN). She served as the party's president from 2011 to 2021, and ran for the French presidency in ...

(

Front National The National Rally (, , RN), known as the National Front from 1972 to 2018 (, , FN), is a French far-right politics, far-right political party, described as right-wing populist and French nationalism, nationalist. It is the single largest Nat ...

) filed a parliamentary request in the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...

asking about the funding of WhyEurope through the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...

. Commissioner

Günther Oettinger Günther Hermann Oettinger (born 15 October 1953) is a German lawyer and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as European Commissioner for Budget and Human Resources from 2017 to 2019, as European Commissioner for Digi ...

, then responsible person for the EU budget, replied that the Commission has not funded WhyEurope in any way and the name were not found within the central accounting system. November 2017, WhyEurope has been awarded ''European Public Communication Award'' by the

European Committee Of The Regions The European Committee of the Regions (CoR) is the European Union's (EU) assembly of local and regional representatives that provides sub-national authorities (i.e. regions, counties, provinces, municipalities and cities) with a direct voice w ...

. The prize was received during the EuroPCom in the hemicycle of the

. In May 2018, WhyEurope was awarded the Arno-Esch-Preis by the Association of Liberal Academics in Germany.

References

External links

*{{Official website, http://www.whyeurope.org/ Pro-Europeanism Organisations based in Tübingen Political advocacy groups in Germany Organizations established in 2017 2017 establishments in Germany