A year ago, master’s student in the Barcelona GSE Finance Program, Patrick Altmeyer gave a talk at TEDx University of Edinburgh on how positive impact European integration has had and should continue to have on our lives contrary. It provides us with greater freedom to choose, learn, exchange ideas, experience, develop. Here he describes his experience as a TEDx speaker and expands on the subject of the talk based on his experience as a student in Barcelona:
“TEDx at the University of Edinburgh was a very challenging and rewarding experience. I loved the thrill of speaking in front of hundreds of people and would definitely enjoy doing something similar again. It also provided my fellow speakers and me with a unique platform to speak out and actually reach people. I was at the time and still am bothered by growing pessimism about the idea of European integration. With my speech I intended to remind people of what’s at stake if in face of undeniable difficulties we simply give up on Europe and return to nationalist agendas.
Experiencing at first hand the recent political developments here in Barcelona has been a true reality check for me. The call for secession is by its very nature anti-unionist. But somehow the many peaceful independence supporters I have seen in the streets – among them many of my Catalan friends – have nothing in common with what we would generally think of as nationalists. Their opponents love to portray the Catalan separatists as anti-European (and themselves as saviours of the union), but personally I don’t buy that. I have realised during my time here that a strive for regional identity can go hand in hand with an open mind for Europe. One of today’s biggest challenges for supporters of integration is therefore to promote a sense of European unity while at the same time recognising that we are a very diverse group of people.”
You can watch his TEDx talk from January 2017 here, as well as discover what triggered the idea for this TEDx talk here.