The University Institute for European Studies at CEU San Pablo University organised an European Awareness Day (EAD) which took place on Monday 24 April 2017 at Teatro de la Luz Philips Gran Vía, Madrid in a night event that saw the partecipation of 600 citizens of all ages.
The event featured the performance of the music recital show ‘Europa: ¡Qué pasión! Historia de un amor atormentado’, narrating the history of the European Union since World War II to current crisis and unpredictable future. A welcome speech by Prof. Jerónimo Maillo, AwarEU coordinator in Spain, introduced the event and the guest speaker Raimundo Bassols, Ambassador of Spain directly involved in the accession of Spain to the EEC during the ‘80, who addressed the audience in a 20 minutes speech about his key historical experience in the late XX century, the role of Spain today in the EU and conversely the role of today EU for Spanish citizens, the challenges and needs for further European integration. Ambassador Bassols, as main speaker and one of Spain leading experts on the European integration issues, answered questions from the audience in an interesting discussion that preceded the performance of the show.
Ambassador Bassols personally congratulated the authors and performers, after the show, for a work that literally thrilled the audience and was greatly and warmly appreciated by all academic guests and personalities who took part to the event. Both events provided a great opportunity to promote the Virtual Learning Environment on contemporary European issues.
CEUMEDIA, the University CEU San Pablo’s production team, recorded parts of the events and prepared an audiovisual piece to help dissemination.
Promotion and invitations
The event was widely promoted on key websites and platforms, including:
Invited guests:
Audience feedback
We received a positive audience feedback. In general, they found the musical enjoyable, entertaining and a very innovative way to inform people on the history of the EU. The choice of the songs was excellent and suited to involve an audience of very different ages: from children to young students, from adults to old retired people, the Madrid EAD really offered a key positive test for the effectiveness of both the music recital show and the event format of the EAD.