With the unveiling of an art installation on 14 July at the Citizen's Garden in Brussels, the EuropeReadr project, initiated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia, was officially launched. The flagship project of the Slovenian EU Council Presidency was inaugurated with speeches from David Sassoli, the President of the European Parliament, Gitte Zschoch, the Director of EUNIC, and Anže Logar, the Slovenian Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Slovenia is sending a strong message in making culture one of the key instruments of the EU's internal and external action.

David Sassoli, President of the European Parliament

President Sassoli's opening speech of the event welcomed the EuropeReadr initative and congratulated the Slovenian EU Council Presidency for highlighting the role of culture for the success of the European project: "Slovenia is sending a strong message in making culture one of the key instruments of the EU's internal and external action". He further underlined the need for supporting the cultural and creative sectors through the Recovery and Resilience Facility.

Minister Logar emphasised that "the Slovenian Presidency is placing culture and creativity high on the European agenda”, in his presentation of the newly launched digital platform which provides a selection of 27 literary works from across the European Union aiming to foster reading culture and critical thinking across societies about the future of living.

Culture and the arts open up a free space of debate, imagination, critique, provocation, utopia. We need to create spaces like that if we want our societies to get stronger, especially as we are just coming out of a moment of crisis.

said Gitte Zschoch in her address, reiterating the current need for cultural initiatives such as EuropeReadr which strengthens the role of culture in protecting the values of human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality and human rights. It is is the first time that such a project is joined by EUNIC members together with the EU Council Presidency and EU institutions. The event continued with a literary talk "Writers on the Future of Living" with Axel Lindén from Sweden and Marlen Schachinger from Austria.

The art installation in the Citizen's Garden in Brussels can be visited until the end of September. Made up of twelve different indigenous Slovenian tree species, it is a symbol of the twelve Europe Readr partners in the EUNIC network. The EuropeReadr digital platform can be accessed here.

You are invited to open a book for a better future!