Project title: EU Journeys: Uniting Stories of European Integration
https://www.eujourneys.eu/
Project duration: March 2025- October 2026
Funding: Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme (CERV)
Partners:
Expert Pool, Bulgaria ( Lead partner)
Peipsi Center for Transboundary Cooperation, EE
EPROJECTCONSULT, Italy
EURO Rebublic (Greece)
Institut Fur Angewandte Medienforschung (Germany)
Summary of the project
The project aims to explore and promote the defining moments, reference points, and impact of European integration on the daily lives of Europeans. It recognizes that European integration has substantially transformed the lives of individuals, shaping their identities and providing new opportunities for cross-border travel, study, and work. The project seeks to highlight the historical milestones, rights, and achievements that have contributed to European integration, emphasizing the role of different people and movements throughout history..
1. The video stories
The project will collect real-life experiences, stories, and testimonials from individuals who have been positively impacted by European integration. The documentaries will be created to showcase these personal journeys, highlighting the transformative power of European integration.
The project organizde open screenings of the five movie documentaries, representing journeys from five different EU countries.
Partner organisations from five countries have created films:
Italy – “Lives Without Borders”: Two individuals share how Erasmus+ and the Schengen Agreement shaped a generation of connected Europeans.
Bulgaria – “Peaks”: Three friends reflect on freedom, resilience, and life after integration.
Greece – “Integration”: Voices from across society retrace Europe’s path from historic treaties to today’s challenges.
Germany – “Studying European”: Students and artists in Bremen explore how knowledge, culture, and creativity transcend borders.
Estonian movie "Journeys Beyond Borders" takes you on five personal memory journeys from the Lake Peipsi region on the EU’s eastern border. It shares inspiring stories: a fisherman and a local food entrepreneur who built their businesses from scratch, women who broadened their horizons through studies and cultural exchanges after the EU borders opened, and a family reclaiming ancestral land and forest lost during the Soviet era. These narratives reveal resilience, opportunity and the transformative power of European integration, especially for small nations.
2. The book: EU Journeys: Chronicles of European Integration
11 August 2026, Mustvee – The book - EU Journeys: Chronicles of European Integration - was presented in Peipsialnd museum.
This book "Chronicles of European Integration" is bringing together personal stories from Estonia, Germany, Greece, Italy and Bulgaria about how European integration has influenced people’s lives, work, communities and personal journeys.
Rather than looking at European integration only through political or economic developments, the book offers a more personal perspective. It explores how major European changes have been experienced by ordinary people – how they have affected opportunities for education and employment, mobility, cultural exchange, professional development and everyday life.
The Estonian stories focus particularly on the transformative years of the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Estonia regained its independence. This period brought profound changes to virtually every aspect of society and personal life. The transition from the Soviet system to an independent, democratic and European-oriented Estonia opened up new opportunities, but also brought uncertainty, adaptation and significant challenges. For many people, European integration later became an important part of this broader transformation and of Estonia’s renewed connection with Europe.
The Mustvee presentation provided an opportunity to introduce the book to the local community and discuss how European developments have been reflected in the lives of people in the Peipsi region. Personal memories and local experiences are particularly valuable in understanding European history from the perspective of communities outside the major political and economic centres.
The project “EU Journeys: Uniting Stories of European Integration” is funded by the EU’s CERV programme.
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