Friends of Europe is a

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

-based, not-for-profit

think-tank A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmental org ...

for European Union policy analysis and debate. The organisation, established in 1999, has no political or national allegiance and is independent of the

EU institutions The institutions of the European Union are the seven principal decision-making bodies of the European Union and the Euratom. They are, as listed in Article 13 of the Treaty on European Union: * the European Parliament, * the European Council ...

. Its declared goal is to foster open discussion and to stimulate new thinking on the issues facing Europe and its citizens. It is located in the Treesquare building in De Meeûssquare.

Areas of expertise

The organisation's activities focus in particular on seven thematic areas: *

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

emerging economies An emerging market (or an emerging country or an emerging economy) is a market that has some characteristics of a developed market, but does not fully meet its standards. This includes markets that may become developed markets in the future or were ...

* Citizens' Europe *

Climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorologic ...

energy In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of heat a ...

Health Health, according to the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".World Health Organization. (2006)''Constitution of the World Health Organiza ...

Migration Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration * Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another ** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum le ...

integration Integration may refer to: Biology *Multisensory integration *Path integration * Pre-integration complex, viral genetic material used to insert a viral genome into a host genome *DNA integration, by means of site-specific recombinase technology, ...

Peace Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a social sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups. ...

security Security is protection from, or resilience against, potential harm (or other unwanted coercive change) caused by others, by restraining the freedom of others to act. Beneficiaries (technically referents) of security may be of persons and social ...

defence Defense or defence may refer to: Tactical, martial, and political acts or groups * Defense (military), forces primarily intended for warfare * Civil defense, the organizing of civilians to deal with emergencies or enemy attacks * Defense industr ...

*Digital, skills &

inequalities Inequality may refer to: Economics * Attention inequality, unequal distribution of attention across users, groups of people, issues in etc. in attention economy * Economic inequality, difference in economic well-being between population groups * ...

Board of trustees

Friends of Europe's board of trustees is composed of people who hold, or have held, positions of responsibility in European affairs. Its president is Etienne Davignon, a politician, businessman and former vice-president of the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...

. Other members of the Praesidium are: *

Pat Cox Patrick Cox (born 28 November 1952) is a former Irish Fine Gael politician, journalist and television current affairs presenter who served as President of the European Parliament from 2002 to 2004 and Leader of the European Liberal Democrat an ...

, president of the

European Movement International The European Movement International is a lobbying association that coordinates the efforts of associations and national councils with the goal of promoting European integration, and disseminating information about it. History The origins of the ...

and former president of the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...

Monica Frassoni Monica Frassoni (born 10 September 1963) is an Italian politician who served as a Member of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2009 and as co-chair of the European Green Party from 2009 to 2019. In 2018, she was elected at the local Council of ...

, co-president of the European Greens *

Pascal Lamy Pascal Lamy (born 8 April 1947) is a French political consultant and businessman. He was the Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) from 1 September 2005 to 1 September 2013 for 8 years. In April 2009, WTO members reappointed Lamy ...

, director-general of the

World Trade Organization The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. With effective cooperation in the United Nations System, governments use the organization to establish, revise, and e ...

(WTO) and former

European Commissioner A European Commissioner is a member of the 27-member European Commission. Each member within the Commission holds a specific portfolio. The commission is led by the President of the European Commission. In simple terms they are the equivalent ...

for Trade *

Guy Verhofstadt Guy Maurice Marie Louise Verhofstadt (; ; born 11 April 1953) is a Belgian politician who was the leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe from 2009 to 2019, and has been a member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Belgium ...

, former

prime minister of Belgium german: Premierminister von Belgien , insignia = State Coat of Arms of Belgium.svg , insigniasize = 100px , insigniacaption = Coat of arms , insigniaalt = , flag = Government ...

António Vitorino António Manuel de Carvalho Ferreira Vitorino (12 January 1957 in Lisbon; ) is a Portuguese lawyer and politician of the Socialist Party (PS). Career Career in national politics Vitorino graduated in law from the University of Lisbon. A lawyer ...

, former European Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs and former

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

defence minister and deputy prime minister Friends of Europe's chairman is Giles Merritt, a former Brussels correspondent of the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

''.

EU Interest Representative Register

In April 2009 Administration and Anti-Fraud Commissioner

Siim Kallas Siim Kallas (; born 2 October 1948) is an Estonian politician, former Prime Minister of Estonia, and former European Commissioner. He served as the European Commissioner for Transport between 2010 and 2014. Before that he was the European Commi ...

publicly criticised Friends of Europe for not registering in its "voluntary lobbyists register." Kallas maintained that think tanks, such as Friends of Europe, were an important source of visibility of indirect interest representation at the EU level, and that Friends was explicitly marketing visibility for sponsors. Secretary-General Giles Merritt responded that the organisation made its sources of funding public on its website, and was not promoting any particular interests. He suggested the creation of a separate register for think tanks.

European Young Leaders nominated by Friends of Europe

Ines Arrimadas Ines or INES may refer to: People * Ines (name), a feminine given name, also written as Inés or Inês * Saint Ines or Agnes (), Roman virgin–martyr * Eda-Ines Etti (stage name: ''Ines''; born 1981), Estonian singer Places * Doña Ines, a volca ...

Danka Bartekova Danka may refer to: *A family affiliated with a Buddhist temple in Japan, or '' danka''. People with the given name * Danka Barteková (born 1984), Slovak skeet shooter *Danka Kovinić (born 1994), Montenegrin professional tennis player * Danka P ...

Alexandra Dariescu Alexandra Ioana Dariescu (born 16 August 1985) is a Romanian British classical concert pianist, educator, mentor and producer. She is best known for her multimedia project ''The Nutcracker and I'' and her focus on promoting the works of female c ...

Karima Delli Karima Delli (born 4 March 1979 in Roubaix, Nord) is a French politician and Member of the European Parliament elected in the 2009 European election, 2014 European elections and in the 2019 European elections for the Île-de-France constituen ...

Maïmouna Doucouré Maïmouna Doucouré (; born 1985) is a French filmmaker. She made her feature film directorial debut with ''Cuties'' in 2020 and became a controversial figure globally after the film's international release on Netflix. On 8 March 2019 coinciding ...

Mato Franković Mato Franković (; born 23 February 1982) is a Croatian politician who has been mayor of Dubrovnik since 2017. A member of the conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), he served as a member of the Croatian Parliament from 2016 to 2017, and i ...

Mariya Gabriel Mariya Ivanova Gabriel ( bg, Мария Иванова Габриел) (''née'' Nedelcheva, bg, Неделчева) (born 20 May 1979) is a Bulgarian politician and a member of the GERB party serving as European Commissioner for Innovation, R ...

Paolo Giordano Paolo Giordano (born 1982) is an Italian writer who won the Premio Strega literary award with his first novel ''The Solitude of Prime Numbers''. Biography Paolo Giordano was born on December 19, 1982, in Turin, Italy. He studied physics at ...

Gyde Jensen Gyde Jensen (born 14 August 1989 in Rendsburg) is a German politician of the Free Democratic Party (Germany), Free Democratic Party (FDP) who has been serving as a member of the Bundestag since 2017. Education and early career Jensen studied En ...

Benjamina Karić Benjamina Karić (; born 8 April 1991) is a Bosnian politician serving as the 39th mayor of Sarajevo since 2021. She has been a member of the Social Democratic Party since 2009. Karić was born in Sarajevo in 1991. She graduated from the Univer ...

* Claudia Olsson *

Paolo Petrocelli EMMA for Peace, or the Euro Mediterranean Music Academy, is an international Nonprofit organization for the promotion of peace through music diplomacy and education in Europe, Middle East and the Mediterranean region. History EMMA for Peace wa ...

Michal Šimečka Michal Šimečka (born May 10, 1984 in Bratislava) is a Slovak politician, journalist, researcher, and a Member of the European Parliament since 2019. He is the vice president, and one of the founding members, of the liberal party Progressive Slo ...

References

External links

Official website
1999 establishments in Belgium Think tanks established in 1999 Political and economic think tanks based in the European Union Think tanks based in Belgium European integration think tanks {{euro-org-stub