EVENTS The workshops held during the event focused both on regionalism from a pragmatic point of view, placing an emphasis on the administrative dimension, as well as on the ideological point of view, by highlighting the cultural aspects of regionalism. The participants had thus the opportunity to look at regionalism both from an intra-European point of view by analyzing EU’s regional policies, as well as from an interEuropean points of view, by analyzing EU’s role in its Eastern neighbourhood.
Additionally, in the framework of the event, a visit to the regional parliament of Castile and León was organised, given its relevance for the topic of the event. Our participants had the chance to speak with its president about the regional division of Spain and its functioning in order to understand in what ways a de facto regional organization influences the perceptions on regional identity.
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Utrect
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During the event we organized various rounds of street actions in Leon, and also in Valladolid, capital of the autonomous community of Castile and Leon and popular due to its low rate of independentist people. According to the Spaniards, most of countries were
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considered European, except for the Caucasus which was considered European by less than 20% if the respondents. The rest of the results were predictable: the most European country was considered to be Germany (39%), while the most important criteria that make country European were economic development (31%) and culture (25%). Economy was also considered to be the most important criterion that brings European countries together (55%). The respondents agreed to a future European enlargement (58%) but what was quite surprising is their apparently positive reaction to the posibility of a
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Munich
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federal Europe, with 42% declaring themselves in favour of the latter. The special question focused on regionalism, with 20% of the Spaniards declaring that they identify themselves firstly with their region and afterwards with their country. However, to the next question, of whether their region should become independent, 80% answered negatively. Juan Sordo Barreiro FORMER PROJECT MANAGER
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