Dealing with Euroscepticism (DEUS)
Dealing with Euroscepticism (DEUS) represents a pan-European effort to deepen young people's understanding a appreciation of common European values, and help them spot and dismantle misinformation about the EU, especially in the run-up to the 2024 European Parliament election.
Dealing with Euroscepticism (DEUS) represents a pan-European effort to deepen young people's understanding a appreciation of common European values, and help them spot and dismantle misinformation about the EU, especially in the run-up to the 2024 European Parliament election.
Our goal is simple but ambitious - to work together to understand the sources, mechanisms, and impacts of disinformation about the EU and to develop and implement compelling debate methodology-based strategies to counter it. Through this project, we hope to make a meaningful contribution to the health of our democracies and discussion about the EU.
We will apply innovative education and communication methodology of depolarisation to tackle Euroscepticism and disinformation targeting the European Union youth. We will simultaneously put forward a positive-narratives-based communication campaign and activities exploring the Union and its values.
In the lead-up to the upcoming elections, we will empower young citizens, with particular attention to gender mainstreaming goals, to participate in EU elections and actively participate in the political process.
Impact
Debate methodology is one of the essential methods we will use to tackle disinformation. This approach allows us to engage in a constructive dialogue with stakeholders and to present and evaluate evidence and arguments systematically and transparently. Our goal is to ensure that young people as target groups will have a deeper understanding and appreciation of European values and an improved capacity to respond to disinformation-based anti-EU content at the end of the project. Key elements of the project are that we are not promoting or forcing young people to support the EU, only to have a deeper understanding of its values and to debate it in an informed way.
The project will also increase the capacities of partner organizations, their staff, and extended member networks, as well as resilience in addressing Eurosceptic and EU-related disinformation views, attitudes, and narratives.
Key activities
DEUS Research & Framing, during which we will map Eurosceptic attitudes and narratives, as well as critical EU-related disinformation trends across the partner countries;
120 community activists, youth workers, and educators from 13 EU countries will participate in 4 DESUS Training Activities and create their own action plans for further dissemination.
15.000 YEC will take an active part in depolarisation and empowerment activities, addressing Euroscepticism, exploring EU values, and connecting with MEPs in the lead-up to the 2024 elections
460 young European citizens will participate in 2 online conferences on EU values and active participation across in EU political process
1.200.000 YEC reached through the youth-led (Re)Defining Europe social media campaign activities
DEUS spans 12 EU member states through IDEA's cooperation with the Croatian Debate Society, the Czech Debate Association, Dare to be Grey (Netherlands), the Estonian Debate Society, HERMES (Croatian Education and Development Network for the Evolution of Communication), the National Debate Society of Italy, Latvian Debate Center, Lithuanian Debate Center, Polska Debatuje Foundation, ARDOR (Romanian Association for Debate, Public Speaking and Rhetorics), Slovak Debate Association, Commun Global (Spain), and Za in Proti (Slovenia).
The project is co-funded through the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme (CERV) of the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.