“I am very proud of our achievement! We have taken a huge step forward by making this insane project a reality. This real revolution envisions only good prospects for the European Union”

Those are the words I expressed proudly in front of my colleagues a few years ago. Do not worry. I am going to explain you how we came to this statement from the beginning, the very beginning.

I was 10 in 2010. My life was nothing else than a common schoolboy’s life. For me, Europe was an uninteresting idea. Maybe because I only really got to learn about it in school. Back then, I did not fully realize how impressive it was to live in the capital of Europe. To me, it was only my city. Nothing more. Did the Union really need a capital with all those huge and impressive buildings bearing its name? Basically, I only cared about the stickers I collected. Those that I stack on the kind of books that you had to fill as fast as possible to be able to show off to all your friends.

Years went by and during my young adolescence I was led to take, little by little, an insight in what politics was all about. In fact, in my family’s morning routine, breakfast meant listening to the radio. I heard adults talking about apparently very important stuff. Sometimes, when I was bored, I even flipped through my father’s daily newspaper on the family table.

One day, on Facebook, I read: “Do you really trust the EU and its dusty institutions filled with bureaucrats out of touch with reality?” I realised this kind of narrative was no exception. In fact, on social media, there were many who gave demagogic, over-simplified and pessimistic speeches about the EU. Hearing some people, all the current issues were to put on it. I thought that it was all more complex than what people claimed. Instead of just diving headfirst in this trouble water, I tried for the better or the worse to sort facts from fiction. A responsible citizen’s attitude, basically. However, all my friends called me crazy. Taking interest in what they called -forgive me the expression- “euro-bullshit” was a real waste of time to them. Because our student’s lives were so overloaded, I rather got their point of view.

However, I did not stop at the first hurdle. On the contrary, this defeatist rhetoric rather sent me on a deeper reflection. I did not fully understand why some people could persist in denigrating the union that had brought peace, many liberties but also a healthy economy or other priceless benefits to their countries. Had we already forgotten the atrocities committed in the last century?

Admittedly, in the EU we knew by 2017, certain things had to be improved. Yet, everything was definitely not to throw away. Somehow, I believed that there was still a way to gather all the countries around a strong and ambitious Union. There were undoubtedly some stickers missing in the “EU book” to be able to read it further! Among the elements missing for the smooth functioning of it, I pointed out the important lack of COMMUNICATION and TRANSPARENCY between politicians and citizens. For sure, this led thereby to disinterest from the potential voters. Instead, this mood is a breeding ground for demagogues to sow simplistic ideas and so boost their electorate. It must be acknowledged that the voter turnout had been decreasing year by year. According to figures from de EU, barely 42% of European citizens had expressed their voice at the last election of the European Parliament instead of almost 70% at the first elections. Youth, especially, didn’t consider the importance of those elections. Euroscepticism had dizzily increased as well. In my opinion, the main cause was clearly this lack of communication and transparency.

Aware of this problem, my citizen’s duty was obviously to try to solve it. After having slept on it, a quite logical solution came to my mind. In fact, being in the middle of the digital revolution, it sounded like evidence that technology could play the key role. Therefore I decided to develop an application available on all kind of devices. The idea was to create a way that would enable citizens all over the EU territory to feel closer to their policymakers. In concrete terms, a platform would be made up of 3 distinct sections. First of all, one more informational section would resume, for instance, the several functions of the different EU institutions and the topics they cover, the significant milestones in the history of the EU or even the main current and future challenges for the EU. Besides, one more interactive section through a modern displayed forum could allow each citizen to suggest and share their ideas or to ask their questions. Members of each institution would be in charge of answering. The goal here would be to raise awareness and to foster the relation between common people and politicians. One idea could be that the proposal which had collected the most dumbs up that day should be discussed in the parliament. Last but not least, an EU news feed would be the homepage. By scrolling in it, you could for example find concrete policies, live or podcasted videos of debates at the parliament as well as other posts aimed at informing well all citizens.

Making the platform as accessible as possible for all the Europeans would be of course a major objective. To this end, some degrees of simplification would be available so as to provide appropriate content for each age. Everybody should be able to find out a lot of inspiring but adapted content. It is needless to say that the application would also be translated in the 24 EU official languages. Making it easy to use and, above all, enjoyable would obviously be the ultimate goal. So, I contacted proudly the EU institutions to propose my project. I never received any feedback. Apparently, they had no time to waste. Once again, I understood all the misunderstandings and the tension prevailing between the EU and its citizens. I was for sure considered to be an idealist guy and my application as impracticable. Despite the fact I was not offered any support, I did not give up.

Thanks to my entrepreneurial spirit and my persistence, I managed to keep moving forward in this promising project. In fact, having no ways to finance the application, I joined a crowdfunding website. An enormous buzz on social media followed. Within a month, I had already collect above 50.000 EUR from donations. It was crazy! It increased exponentially! What a relief! From week to week, from day to day, more and more people were rallying around my app. This popular craze constituted an unequivocal demonstration of the relevance of my fight. So, this broad public support gave me the power to do my utmost. Therefore, I began looking after some competent professionals to help me. Eventually, a couple of computer programmers, journalists, translators and graphic designers joined me. Yet, I still had to find a name to my program. The platform allowing people to enhance their voice, I decided, together with my team, to call it “ECHO”.

After serval months of sheer hard work, we began to get a glimpse of the end of the tunnel. The only step left was to gain the support of the EU. On our own, we could not survive financially. Thus, I went presenting our “product” to the Commission. Reluctant first, they finally showed enthusiasm. In fact, they had no real choice but to support my initiative since the huge amount of people that had stood up. So, we started working with the European Parliament, the European Commission, the European Central Bank, the European Court of Justice and so on. Each of those institutions had designated officials to meet the needs of our application. Seeing that my project became stable and sustainable in the long term, to be honest, I experienced a peaceful feeling. The one you get when you know you have fulfilled your duty. What a blessing! You probably understand what I mean. With my modest spark I managed to stir the fire. I was impressed how well people from all origins, all cultures, all religions, got on with each other and shared their minds on ECHO. Isn’t that the real Union?

It is interesting to see that 2 years after I released my app, the elections of the European Parliament showed an encouraging voter turnout. An increase of 15% has been observed compared to the previous one. Just a coincidence? I do not think so. Moreover, in the years that followed, some brilliant ideas emerged from all over Europe through the app. The European ID, for instance, was proposed by a 16-year-old Spanish student and adopted 2 years ago for all the countries in the Schengen area.

With ECHO I think that I somehow succeeded in making people more aware of the importance of politics in our daily life. In fact, they feel more concerned about the proper functioning of our society and the common well-being of humanity. I dare to hope that, seeing the success of the platform, the senior leaders would definitely understand that the great ideas can also come from “the bottom”. Obviously, those ideas have to be well supported. Every European citizen can contribute in its scale to strengthen the Union!