{"id":14274,"date":"2026-08-31T11:09:45","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T08:09:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/europeforum.fi\/?p=14274"},"modified":"2026-08-31T11:09:45","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T08:09:45","slug":"the-europe-forum-once-again-cements-its-position-as-a-meeting-place-for-european-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/europeforum.fi\/en\/blog\/2026\/08\/31\/the-europe-forum-once-again-cements-its-position-as-a-meeting-place-for-european-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"The Europe Forum once again cements its position as a meeting place for European debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Turku Europe Forum has once again broken its\u00a0<\/span>previous<\/span>\u00a0records, bringing together over 1,500\u00a0<\/span>decision-makers<\/span>, experts and members of the public at the Turku City Theatre from 26 to 28 August 2026.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, around 1,200 members of the public attended the public event at\u00a0Hansatori, and the live stream attracted\u00a0nearly 11,000\u00a0views during the event. There were 51\u00a0programme\u00a0items and over 220 speakers \u2013 the highest numbers in the Forum\u2019s history.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The next Europe Forum will be held at the new Turku Music Centre\u00a0Fuuga\u00a0and the Turku City Theatre from 25 to 27 August 2027, when the Europe Forum will celebrate its 10th anniversary.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Discussions at the Forum focused\u00a0in particular on\u00a0values, innovation and security as the foundations of the EU\u2019s success.\u00a0Prime Minister\u00a0<\/span>Petteri Orpo<\/span><\/b>\u00a0delivered the opening address at the Europe Forum.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013 The Europe Forum has\u00a0established\u00a0itself at the forefront of the Finnish debate on Europe and, year on year, brings\u00a0more and more\u00a0people together to listen and discuss. This is\u00a0truly essential, because we are\u00a0Europeans\u00a0and our prosperity, well-being and security are built together, within a united European Union. I cannot think of a better venue for this event than Turku,\u2019 said Orpo.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Petteri<\/p>\n

Henna Virkkunen<\/span><\/b>, First Vice-President of the European Commission, also shared her views at the forum on the elements that will shape the future of a sovereign Europe, and how Europe\u2019s security and competitiveness at the forefront of the world can be ensured.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013 The top priority for Europe is that we ourselves have the capacity to take responsibility for our own security and\u00a0defence, and that we are not so heavily reliant on the support of others. Linked to this are technologies that form a significant part of international trade, the economy, social\u00a0power\u00a0and also\u00a0security. We must have the ability to control the technologies we use and our own data, so that this does not involve any risky dependencies,\u2019 Virkkunen states.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"HennaOver the past nine years, the Europe Forum has grown into an ever-larger event, attracting an increasing number of young people.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013 The Europe Forum is also very much in tune with the times. This time, the focus was very much on both security and the EU\u2019s competitiveness.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0also nice to see that the discussions were primarily aimed at finding solutions. It will be interesting to see what\u00a0topics are discussed next year, says\u00a0<\/span>Matti Anttonen<\/span><\/b>, Chair of the Europe Forum in Turku Association.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Eurooppa-fooruminAll\u00a0programme\u00a0recordings from the forum are available to watch online<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

All\u00a0programmes\u00a0from the Europe Forum will be available to watch later as video recordings on the\u00a0<\/span>Europe Forum\u2019s YouTube channel<\/span><\/a>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Recordings of the live streams<\/span><\/a>\u00a0are already available to watch as daily recordings on the event\u2019s live page, including versions with English interpretation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"EU-liput<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Turku Europe Forum has once again broken its\u00a0previous\u00a0records, bringing together over 1,500\u00a0decision-makers, experts and members of the public at the Turku City Theatre from 26 to 28 August 2026….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14246,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeforum.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeforum.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeforum.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeforum.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeforum.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14274"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/europeforum.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14276,"href":"https:\/\/europeforum.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14274\/revisions\/14276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeforum.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeforum.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeforum.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeforum.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}