24-25 May 2008
EF Kunsttour
1 May 2008
EF Euromayday
21 November 2007
Does a progressive Euregionalism exist?
6 July 2007
Mapping the Euregion
14 June 2007
A flag for the Euregion
23 - 25 novembre 2006
L'Eurégion en tant qu'espace public-politique
16. - 18. November 2006
Die Euregio als ein raum der Übertretung
22 June 2006
The Euregion as economic opportunity
21 June 2006
The Euregion as global knot
STATUTES OF THE EUREGIONAL FORUM
January 2006
1. What is the Euregional Forum?
The Euregional Forum (EF) is a trans-disciplinary and transnational discussion platform with its base at the Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht. It provides a platform for different actors to critically assess Euregional affairs. More specifically, the EF focuses on the way the Euregion Meuse-Rhine deals with its ambition – be it conscious or otherwise – to integrate its constituent parts and enhance mobility between these parts.
2. Who makes up the EF?
The EF is a loose network of people who feel passionately attached, for better or for worse, to the Euregion Meuse-Rhine. Everyone is invited to express their opinions, passions and hopes concerning the Euregion Meuse-Rhine and discuss it with other enthusiasts, experts, Euregion lovers and haters.
3. How does the EF function?
The EF functions through discussions, presentations and installations in which issues are taken up that are directly or indirectly related to the reality of the Euregion Meuse-Rhine. This accommodates the participants in relating their traumatic encounters with the Euregion Meuse-Rhine as well as their moments of ecstatic cross-border enjoyment. It allows them to renew and fine-tune their dreams about the Euregion Meuse-Rhine.
4. What are the rules guiding the EF?
4.1 The participants of the EF agree to express publicly and in full detail their cross-border ventures and the enjoyment/frustration they have experienced.
4.2 The participants of the EF agree to enjoy their right not to enjoy cross-border activity.
4.3 The participants of the EF agree not to have their attitude towards borders hampered by any form of self-interest, censorship or manipulation (material, political or otherwise).
4.4 All participants of the EF grant the other participants the right to go against their opinion if this furthers the cause of the Euregion Meuse-Rhine.
4.5 All participants of the EF grant each other equal aesthetic rights in dealing with the Euregion Meuse-Rhine. This right can and should not be reserved only to policymakers nor should it be left to economic forces only.
4.6 Participants of the EF agree that all rules, value systems and taboos that usually hold good in social relationships will be suspended during the sessions.
5. Is there any concrete need for the EF?
The EF is not driven by any direct need or partial interests. The EF aims at unleashing the pure unbound energy – positive or negative – that people in the Euregion Meuse-Rhine sense when they cross the borders. All too often the intensity of these crossings is repressed by way of a sudden reassertion of the borders as a natural given believed to protect equally given identities that cannot be discussed but seem larger than life. In order to free cross-border activity from any such constraint, the EF comes to the aid of all people who feel forced to enjoy cross-border activities. It also defends the interests of groups that are excluded from the all-pervasive cross-border enjoyment in the Euregion Meuse-Rhine, yet function as the condition of possibility for this enjoyment.
6. What does the EF produce?
The EF produces nothing, except testimonies from all kinds of involved parties about their experiences with the workings and procedures of the Euregion Meuse-Rhine. Not only official representatives of the Euregion Meuse-Rhine will speak up but also other voices that are rarely offered the chance to come out into the open. Optimists and pessimists, integrationists and neo-colonialists, radicals and revisionists – all will equally be given the floor. If the EF produces anything it is this confusion of tongues of which the outcome is unpredictable.
7. Can I join the EF?
The EF is not a fixed organisation. It can appear anywhere and anytime in the Euregion Meuse-Rhine. It goes from nation to nation, from community to community and from city to city. The EF puts up camp where conflicts tear communities apart and in remote area’s where life is sweet and streets are quiet. The EF is the uninvited guest that makes visible what is all too visible yet somehow is cynically repressed.
8. What does the EF want?
The EF wants nothing. The EF has no interest and is not linked to any party or programme. The EF is nothing but the procedure that enables the Euregion Meuse-Rhine to help itself in coming to terms with its unrealized potential as a cross-border entity. The EF helps the Euregion Meuse-Rhine in its ambition to function as the avant-garde of a truly United Europe. The EF regards itself as the crucial instrument to bring the municipalities, provinces, nation states and other governmental or non-governmental organisations involved in the Euregion Meuse-Rhine to the point of effecting a truly integrated Euregion in which everything – not only goods and capital – can move freely. The EF itself can only go beyond that point by running the risk of cancelling out its effectiveness.
January 2006
1. What is the Euregional Forum?
The Euregional Forum (EF) is a trans-disciplinary and transnational discussion platform with its base at the Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht. It provides a platform for different actors to critically assess Euregional affairs. More specifically, the EF focuses on the way the Euregion Meuse-Rhine deals with its ambition – be it conscious or otherwise – to integrate its constituent parts and enhance mobility between these parts.
2. Who makes up the EF?
The EF is a loose network of people who feel passionately attached, for better or for worse, to the Euregion Meuse-Rhine. Everyone is invited to express their opinions, passions and hopes concerning the Euregion Meuse-Rhine and discuss it with other enthusiasts, experts, Euregion lovers and haters.
3. How does the EF function?
The EF functions through discussions, presentations and installations in which issues are taken up that are directly or indirectly related to the reality of the Euregion Meuse-Rhine. This accommodates the participants in relating their traumatic encounters with the Euregion Meuse-Rhine as well as their moments of ecstatic cross-border enjoyment. It allows them to renew and fine-tune their dreams about the Euregion Meuse-Rhine.
4. What are the rules guiding the EF?
4.1 The participants of the EF agree to express publicly and in full detail their cross-border ventures and the enjoyment/frustration they have experienced.
4.2 The participants of the EF agree to enjoy their right not to enjoy cross-border activity.
4.3 The participants of the EF agree not to have their attitude towards borders hampered by any form of self-interest, censorship or manipulation (material, political or otherwise).
4.4 All participants of the EF grant the other participants the right to go against their opinion if this furthers the cause of the Euregion Meuse-Rhine.
4.5 All participants of the EF grant each other equal aesthetic rights in dealing with the Euregion Meuse-Rhine. This right can and should not be reserved only to policymakers nor should it be left to economic forces only.
4.6 Participants of the EF agree that all rules, value systems and taboos that usually hold good in social relationships will be suspended during the sessions.
5. Is there any concrete need for the EF?
The EF is not driven by any direct need or partial interests. The EF aims at unleashing the pure unbound energy – positive or negative – that people in the Euregion Meuse-Rhine sense when they cross the borders. All too often the intensity of these crossings is repressed by way of a sudden reassertion of the borders as a natural given believed to protect equally given identities that cannot be discussed but seem larger than life. In order to free cross-border activity from any such constraint, the EF comes to the aid of all people who feel forced to enjoy cross-border activities. It also defends the interests of groups that are excluded from the all-pervasive cross-border enjoyment in the Euregion Meuse-Rhine, yet function as the condition of possibility for this enjoyment.
6. What does the EF produce?
The EF produces nothing, except testimonies from all kinds of involved parties about their experiences with the workings and procedures of the Euregion Meuse-Rhine. Not only official representatives of the Euregion Meuse-Rhine will speak up but also other voices that are rarely offered the chance to come out into the open. Optimists and pessimists, integrationists and neo-colonialists, radicals and revisionists – all will equally be given the floor. If the EF produces anything it is this confusion of tongues of which the outcome is unpredictable.
7. Can I join the EF?
The EF is not a fixed organisation. It can appear anywhere and anytime in the Euregion Meuse-Rhine. It goes from nation to nation, from community to community and from city to city. The EF puts up camp where conflicts tear communities apart and in remote area’s where life is sweet and streets are quiet. The EF is the uninvited guest that makes visible what is all too visible yet somehow is cynically repressed.
8. What does the EF want?
The EF wants nothing. The EF has no interest and is not linked to any party or programme. The EF is nothing but the procedure that enables the Euregion Meuse-Rhine to help itself in coming to terms with its unrealized potential as a cross-border entity. The EF helps the Euregion Meuse-Rhine in its ambition to function as the avant-garde of a truly United Europe. The EF regards itself as the crucial instrument to bring the municipalities, provinces, nation states and other governmental or non-governmental organisations involved in the Euregion Meuse-Rhine to the point of effecting a truly integrated Euregion in which everything – not only goods and capital – can move freely. The EF itself can only go beyond that point by running the risk of cancelling out its effectiveness.
First Euregio Meuse-Rhine Democracy Awards awarded (19-5-08)
On May 24th 2008, during the EF KunstTour, the first two Euregion Meuse-Rhine Democracy Awards will be officially handed out to Wim Cuyvers of the project Traces of Autism: Wander Research in the Euregion Meuse-Rhine and to Saskia Gorgels-Lindelauf of the KvK Limburg. Read the press announcement.EF on Euromayday Parade Aachen (14-4-08)
On May 1st, the EF will organize a mobile forum during the Euromayday Parade in Aachen, which is organized on occasion of the awarding of the Karlspreis to Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy.
Weekend of Euregional debates during Kunsttour 2008 (14-4-08)
On Saturday the 24st of May, the EF will organize a full day of debates, interviews and live columns in the Jan van Eyck Academy as part of the Kunsttour (art fair) 2008 in Maastricht. The gravitational point of the event will be a House of Commons (Lagerhuis) in which Euregional issues will be discussed and voted on. EF aims at the people of the Euregion (1-1-08)
On January 1st, the EF launched its new campaign for the year 2008 with the motto: The EF comes to the people of the Euregion Meuse-Rhine!. After two years of expert meetings, the EF will now organize a series of popular events in which the citizens and users of the Euregion Meuse-Rhine will occupy centre stage. Click here to read the press release.