“We Are Europe” tour to visit Tampere

The Prime Minister’s Office, the European Studies programme at Tampereen lyseon lukio high school and the Tampere Region EU Office will hold a panel discussion at Wivi Lönn hall in the Monitoimitalo 13 community centre on Saturday 11 December at 14.00. Prime Minister Sanna Marin will give the opening speech at the event.

The panel discussion is part of the We Are Europe series of events organised by Finnish ministers. This autumn and winter, several ministers will travel around the country to hear Finns’ thoughts and hopes about the development of the EU.

The event will be organised safely in line with the local restrictions put in place due to COVID-19. The first 80 people to arrive will be allowed to enter the venue, and participants must be prepared to show their COVID-19 passports. Participants will also be required to wear face masks. The event will be broadcast live on the websites of the We Are Europe tour, the Tampere Region EU Office and the local newspaper Aamulehti.

Young people from Tampere have prepared questions for the event over the course of the autumn. Mayor of Tampere Anna-Kaisa Ikonen, Member of the Tampere City Council and the European Committee of the Regions Mikko Aaltonen, Member of the City Council and Senior Adviser on climate matters at Sitra Oras Tynkkynen and Tampere Youth Council Member Oliver Priimägi will answer the questions and have a discussion with the young people present.

Commissioner Jutta Urpilainen and Ninni Norra, Citizens’ Representative for Finland at the Conference on the Future of Europe, will also give brief speeches at the event. The event will be hosted by students from the European Studies programme at Tampereen lyseon lukio high school.

The Finnish ministers’ “We Are Europe” tour is part of the Conference on the Future of Europe, which aims to collect a wide variety of views from EU citizens on the future of Europe. The issues raised in the discussions will be recorded in the conference’s Multilingual Digital Platform, and the Finnish ministers will pass the messages on at the conference’s EU-level Plenaries. 

You can also share your thoughts and ideas in the digital platform. The online forum seeks citizens’ views on values, climate change, the economy, health and education, and a variety of other themes. The common EU-level hashtag #TheFutureIsYours can be used on social media.

Programme, 11 December 2021

13.30 Doors open

• Coffee

14.00 Opening of the event

• Opening speech by Prime Minister Sanna Marin

14.15–15.15 Panel discussion

• Students in the European Studies programme tell about their work during the autumn
• Video greeting by Commissioner Jutta Urpilainen
• Panel discussion
  • Anna-Kaisa Ikonen, Mayor of Tampere
  • Oras Tynkkynen, Member of the Tampere City Council and Senior Advisor on Climate at Sitra
  • Mikko Aaltonen, Member of the Tampere City Council and Member of the European Committee of the Regions 
  • Oliver Priimägi, Member of the Tampere Youth Council
• Ninni Norra, Citizens’ Representative at the Conference on the Future of Europe, will give the closing speech at the event.

Inquiries: Topi Juga, Specialist, EU Affairs, tel. +358 295 160 459, topi.juga(at)gov.fi and Aapo Riihimäki, Communications Specialist, tel. +358 50 471 3020, aapo.riihimaki(at)gov.fi, Prime Minister’s Office.