Fresh ideas to face the EU’s challenges
A strong policy proposal to confront the challenges of the demographic winter and labor force shortages in the EU earned a 2nd place in the 2024 futurEu Competition for the team of Anselmo Scano, a bachelor in International economics & management student at Bocconi, and Alessandra Turrisi, a Master's student in International Development at Sciences Po
The competition is open to all students and researchers of the schools of the CIVICA alliance, of which Bocconi is a founding member, and is organized by the futurEU Initiative, founded in 2019 by master's students of the Hertie School, with the support of the CIVICA alliance, the Jacques Delors Centre Berlin, and the Hertie School. It invites students to develop policy proposals to face the EU’s main challenges – from immigration to sustainability, from digital transformation to democracy.
“Alessandra, a classmate from high school, proposed participating to me and I was enthusiastic to try something new, working on a policy brief. And to draft a first short proposal we received great help from workshops that were organized for us,” says Anselmo. “We focused on the critical issue of the winter demography in the EU and the shortage of low-skilled workers which stems from this – working on a policy for a migration scheme to favor the arrival of low-skilled workers, modeled on the existing EU Blue Card scheme, which targets high-skilled migrants.”
“We believe it is important to introduce a new narrative on immigration, one focused on the opportunities it brings to the EU,” explains Alessandra. “We also think that providing alternatives to dangerous migrant routes is a more efficient approach to immigration and reaffirms Europe's commitment to human rights and restores dignity of migrants coming to Europe.”
Their policy brief was selected as one of the 8 semifinalists to got to Berlin, selected from the initial 87 teams (216 students) that had participated. In the semi-final, all teams presented their policy brief to the judges, who challenged, provided feedback and evaluated the proposals. Anselmo and Alessandra were selected as on of the two teams for the finals and had two intense hours to integrate the feedback into an updated brief before returning to the judges. And a strong performance earned them the overall 2nd place in the competition, behind a team of two students from Sciences Po.
“It was a very interesting experience overall, working on new writing skills and to such tight schedules on the day of the finals. And also to gain new insights on the challenge of immigration in Europe and also how EU institutions work and confront various phenomena,” says Anselmo.
“This opportunity with CIVICA was a great way to think about things we learn in class in a different way, as well as learn about new fields - I am not often dealing with EU legislation,” says Alessandra. “Going to Berlin was also an amazing experience to exchange with other students of social sciences across Europe.”