18 February 2022

"In light of the demographic decrease, the unbalanced GDP and the unequal literacy characterising Southern Europe compared to its North (EuroStat, 2021), we deem there is a need for policies aimed at attracting digital nomads in order to repopulate, enrich and acculturate the Mediterranean basin." This premise opens the document gathering the ideas and proposals for the Conference on the Future of Europe drawn up at "Incontriamoci a Lecce" (Let's meet in Lecce), the fourth appointment of the cycle of itinerant  meetings dedicated to the Conference on the Future of Europe.

University and PhD students from Salento capital city, guided by teachers Susanna Cafaro and Claudia Morini, identified some core policies that European institutions should adopt, such as contribution and tax incentives to Southern Regions in order to encourage Digital Nomads to settle in Southern Europe prolongedly. According to the Workshop participants, local administrations should manage co-working and co-living spaces created in an urban regeneration process that must also include enhanced digital infrastructures, often lacking in Southern Europe as well as in peripheral areas.

The topics addressed by the two working groups and debated in the morning's rich session of speeches mainly concerned economic and social issues. On the employment front, university and Phd students are calling for an enhanced European placement system and the abolition of unpaid internships and unfunded PhD courses. With regard to training, proposals encompass EU-level integrated education, to enable students to feel included in a broad and transversal European training context looking after their education.

The Workshop also came up with two proposals on European democracy, i.e., the abolition of the balanced budget, which has implied several cuts in the public domain and social services, thus exacerbating social marginalisation, primarily in Southern Europe; and greater powers for the European Parliament, to bridge the gap between the European Commission and Member States.

Read the full document resulting from the Workshop [.pdf IT - 166Kbyte]