On April, the 29th the first students’ conference in the framework of Erasmus + Jean Monnet project «European identity via the policy of the European Union" was held at the conference hall of the main building of Voronezh State University.

The conference started with the welcoming speech delivered by Vice-Rector (Economy and International Cooperation) Oleg Belenov. He noted that the students’ conference theme fits into the large-scale study conducted in VSU, dedicated to the European identity and its image in Russia.

The PolidEU project leader, Head of the French philology department Elena Alexeeva in her opening speech stressed the complexity of the phenomenon of European identity and the importance of its study for a better understanding of the EU geopolitical, economic and social development.

The 3d and the 4th year students of the Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology and the Faculty of International Relations took part in the conference. Their reports touched upon various aspects of fostering the European identity, mechanisms for disseminating European values as well as upon the most urgent problems of migration and euroscepticism. The participants presented their speeches in French.

All the speakers were awarded certificates in French and Russian languages, confirming their participation in the event.

Department of French philology would like to thank all the students who submitted the results of their research:

  1. Catherine Derkach, Anton Mezhov (3rd year, Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology): To be European in Europe: an overview of the results of polls on the European identity;
  2. Marina Taranzhina (3rd year, Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology): Language policy as a means to foster the European identity;
  3. Julia Golotvina (4th year, Faculty of International Relations): The role of the European identity in the Eastern Partnership as a mechanism of the EU scope of influence expansion;
  4. Evgenia Rybalko (3rd year, Faculty of International Relations): The phenomenon of European identity in the context of the influx of immigrants;
  5. Vera Oroshanu (4th year, Faculty of International Relations): French immigration policy and the difficulties of immigrants’ assimilation in France;
  6. Sergey Stepnyak (4th year, Faculty of International Relations): Impact of euroscepticism on European identity;
  7. Ksenia Romanenkova (3rd year, Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology): The problem of the European identity in the mirror of posters in Europe.