In the first year, the project focuses on initial teacher training sessions regarding EU topics and specialized workshops dedicated to constructing a European Civic Education school course. From the second year, participating schools will launch a competition among students to select participants for two "European Values" Summer Schools. These summer schools will include sessions involving European policy-makers, offering students a unique opportunity for direct dialogue and engagement with institutional representatives.

Each year, the schools identify specific issues related to European values that students wish to explore. These topics are then examined in depth through laboratories organized by eCampus University staff. Furthermore, every school hosts a public event with European policy-makers to foster direct interaction between students and institutions, demonstrating that the EU is a tangible part of their lives rather than a distant entity. These events are organized with the support of CesUE, which also conducts a workshop on “Communicating Europe” in collaboration with EURACTIV Italia.

On December 2, 2025, the Jean Monnet "European Values" project, an EU-cofunded initiative led by University eCampus, reached its official conclusion with a high-level online conference. This three-year journey successfully connected the classroom with the heart of European politics, involving students from Italy’s IIS Montessori Repetti and IIS N. Machiavelli, Greece’s 2nd Geniko Lykeio of Arta, Denmark’s Ørestad Gymnasium, and Cyprus’s Lykeio Agiou Antoniou, all with the strategic support of CesUE.

The debate focused heavily on the "cost of non-Europe," with Professor Roberto Castaldi illustrating how national fragmentation results in an annual loss of €250 billion in tax revenue and significant defense inefficiencies. He argued that to thrive in a world of "continent-states", the EU must move toward shared sovereignty in energy, fiscal policy, and security. This vision was reinforced by MEPs Camila Laureti (S&D), Brando Benifei (S&D), and Manolis Kefalogiannis (EPP), alongside expert Domènec Devesa (President of UEF), who discussed the AI Act, the "one health" approach to the environment, and the necessity of developing a credible European "hard power" to defend peace and democratic standards in an increasingly volatile global landscape.

The true protagonists, however, were the students, who moved the conversation from theory to practice by presenting "hope" as a political necessity against modern cynicism. They shared how they applied democratic principles within their own school communities, proving that European citizenship is an active responsibility rather than a passive status. 

The event closed with a call to action, reminding participants that defending democracy is a collective effort and that every student’s contribution is a vital "grain of sand" in building a more resilient and united Union.

Click here to watch the full video: https://www.youtube.com/live/Gwgbg8-YstA

From 14 to 20 September 2025, forty students from Italy, Greece, Denmark and Cyprus took part in the second edition of the Jean Monnet Network European Values Summer School. The programme led them to the very heart of European democracy, with a series of visits to the EU’s key institutions and debates on the themes shaping Europe’s future.

The students had the opportunity to visit the European emicycle with a special guide: a young official of the European Parliament working for the President Office, who gave the students insights from the EP perspective. Moreover, the programme included visits to the European Commission and the European Council, a session at the Tuscany Region Office of the European Union, a guided tour of the House of European History, and debates and role-playing activities with JEF Europe, the Young European Federalists. Additionally students confronted with some journalist of Euractiv at their newsroom. 

Students embarked also on a study trip to Bruges, connecting European cultural heritage with today’s challenges, and engage in group presentations, workshops, and Q&A sessions.

Programme of EU Values Summer school, Brussels 2025

From 9 to 15 September, about forty male and female students from four European countries visited major institutions in Brussels as part of the Jean Monnet Network “European Values”, funded by the European Union.

The programme foresaw visits and meetings at and with representatives of the European Parliament, the European Commission, the European External Action Service, the Italian Representation to the European Union, the Tuscany Region Office to the European Union, as well as the NATO Headquarters, in addition to meetings with representatives of the media and civil society, and a visit to the House of European History. 

The theme of the trip was “Europe in the World: Common Foreign Policy and Defence, Green Transition and Values”. Faced with the crisis situations and global challenges that the EU is facing, it is essential to delve into the essentials and think about creative solutions.

In addition to visiting the institutions, debates, workshops, and role-playing and simulations of European institutions were organised, making use of the knowledge and skills acquired during the project and the summer school meetings.

On Thursday 14 and Friday 15 September, eCampus University hosted the first in-person workshop as part of the 'European Values' project at its headquarters in Novedrate (CO). This initiative is promoted within the framework of the Jean Monnet Action of the Erasmus Plus programme.

The workshop held in Novedrate is part of the training programme for teachers participating in the project, representing the conclusion of a six-month course. The teachers who took part in the Novedrate workshop, representing each school, will be responsible for coordinating the activities carried out in their own institutions, transferring the working methods and content developed cooperatively during the workshop to their colleagues participating in the project.

The teachers worked together to identify the topics they intend to work on in class with their tools and to develop ideas for the format and content of their teaching materials. This work will continue online in a continuous flow of sharing ideas and tools to create synergy and enhance the skills and experiences of the various countries participating in the project.

Looking to the future, 'European Values' has set itself a series of very ambitious goals: to train a large group of teachers from four different countries in European-style teaching; to educate students in the schools involved in a European and pro-European culture; to complete, at the end of the three-year project, a proposal for a European civic education programme that could perhaps be used by the EU to structurally integrate European issues into the education systems of Member States.

Schools activities