Europe Day, which is celebrated every year on May 9, celebrates European peace and unity. The date marks the anniversary of the historic "Schuman Declaration" from 1950, by which the then French Minister of Foreign Affairs proposed the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community, the first in a series of supranational European institutions that gave rise to today's European Union.

The main message of this year's Europe Day is – Let's celebrate our stories!

This year, we celebrated European Week with a special celebration, because this May we celebrate the largest enlargement in history, the 20th birthday of Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia in the European Union.

This year's Europe Day will take place with the slogan of the European Parliament "Use your voice." Don't let others shape your future." because exactly one month later the citizens of the European Union go to the polls: the European elections in Croatia will be held on June 9, 2024. The European elections are held every five years, and the citizens of the Union directly elect representatives who will represent their interests in the European Parliament. In the 2024 elections, a total of 720 representatives will be elected, 15 more than in the last elections, of which Croatia has 12 representatives.

This year's celebration of Europe Day in Karlovac, the 10th in a row, was dedicated to young people, EU enlargement, European elections and the promotion of the European movie.

The European Week started with the Cinema Club Karlovac with screenings of EU films in Ozalj, Karlovac and Ogulin. On Europe Day itself, we held the #EUFair workshop, intended for high school students, where the students, divided into groups, had to creatively present selected EU member states. After the workshop, they watched and commented on selected short films from the Four River Film Festival. The workshop was attended by the students of the Karlovac Gymnasium and the Karlovac School of Natural Sciences, accompanied by mentor professors.

In the evening part of the program, starting at 19:00 at Edison Cinema, there was a screening of the film "Vasil", a Spanish-Bulgarian comedy-drama from 2022, written and directed by Avelina Prat in her feature film debut. Vasil is an intelligent and charismatic Bulgarian immigrant who brings a different perspective on life to the four characters he meets during two months in Spain.

This year's partners in celebrating Europe Day were Kino Edison, Desk Kreativne Europe - Media and Kinoklub Karlovac. We would like to thank them once again for their pleasant cooperation and we're looking forward to new joint activities.

We had a good time, you can check it in the gallery.