24/09/2025
Seventy-five years after the start of the integration process in Europe, marked by the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community—the precursor to today’s European Union (EU)—there remains a lack of consensus among European states, their citizens, and researchers regarding the political meaning of the term “Europe” and the essence of European values. Contradictions in these interpretations are apparent in the political practices of contemporary Europe and in the socio-political turbulence that exists both within individual states and societies, as well as between European countries, regardless of their EU membership status.
Given the current political, social, and academic trends, we believed it was crucial to foster a scientific debate on contemporary understandings of European values, their interpretations across different regions, and among various social groups, as well as to explore the direction of their future development. Therefore, in June 2025, we organised the conference in Belgrade titled “European Values: From Challenge to Affirmation,” which addressed these questions from various disciplinary perspectives and resulted in a collection of papers under the same title, featuring 19 contributions from conference participants in the Serbian language (apart from one paper, which is in English).
The first part of the collection features papers that explore European values in relation to norms and identity. The next section focuses on research concerning the practical application of these values within specific EU sector policies. Following that, several papers analyse how European values are applied in the context of contemporary international relations, diplomacy, and the EU's external actions. The penultimate section presents papers that examine the role of European values in the EU's enlargement policy, which has been crucial to the Union's development since the second half of the 20th century. Finally, the last section of this collection includes papers that discuss the value component in various aspects of Serbia's EU accession process.
The collection is published by the University of Belgrade – Faculty of Political Sciences. The editors are Prof. Dr Ivana Radić Milosavljević, Assistant Prof. Dr Janja Simentić Popović, and Assistant Prof. Dr Milan Krstić.
The conference was organised as part of the EUROPIA project (On-Wheels Summer School for the Socio-Cultural Evolution of European Values, Principles, Identity, and Awareness), financed by the European Union through the Erasmus+ programme. More information about the project is available on the official website: https://www.europiaproject.eu/. The collection of papers is an added value to the project’s results. It is available for download here: https://katalog.fpn.bg.ac.rs/sr/publikacija/evropske-vrednosti-izmedu-osporavana-i-afirmacije
Europia project
Fakultet političkih nauka - Univerzitet u Beogradu
University of Warsaw