Dear friends of My Country Talks,

A warm welcome to the third edition of our monthly newsletter. It’s great to have you here and we’re excited to share the latest news from the world of political dialogue. Read about how we brought young visionaries into one-on-one conversations, take a look at our unique, ever-growing pan-European media network of Europe Talks, and get an insight into what Germany is thinking shortly before the federal elections. 

Feel free to forward this newsletter to your friends and colleagues, anyone can subscribe here.

Z2X spricht

Should we abolish capitalism? Can we accomplish more with political parties than through activism? Should we all be vegan?

These were some of the questions participants discussed last week at Z2X, the conference for young visionaries from ZEIT Online. Z2X is a huge event, with more than 1,000 attendees in a hybrid conference full of energy, passion and ambition.

To give participants the experience of meeting someone new and exchanging ideas, we worked with Z2X to organise a pre-conference event called Z2X spricht. On Friday, September 3, one day before the conference started, over 100 participants were matched together with someone who had totally different opinions to the questions above. They met up in person or online to get to know each other and discuss their points of view.

Check out some pictures of the conversations which took place in Berlin, courtesy of Alexander Probst for ZEIT Online and Phil Dera for ZEIT Online.

Last talks before election day

Germany goes to the polls in just over two weeks. Since the beginning of May, Deutschland spricht has connected nearly 15,000 people from across Germany to discuss and debate the most controversial issues in the upcoming election. On September 25, we are calling all our participants from this year’s Deutschland spricht to come together and have a discussion one more time before they go to vote.

Over the course of more than 5,000 conversations, we have gained a lot of insight into what people are worried about, what gives them hope for the future, and how they feel about key issues such as climate change, racism, gender, migration, and foreign policy. 

Stay tuned for all those insights in the forthcoming article on ZEIT Online. In the meantime, here’s a breakdown of how participants have answered some of the questions in our registration form:

Meet Europe's new media network

On October 1st we will launch the third edition of our pan-European dialogue format Europe Talks. Together with more than 20 media partners from all over Europe we will engage our readers into one-on-one, cross-border conversations. Last year, more than 20,000 people from more than 34 countries signed-up to have a discussion with someone that thinks totally different from them. This year, we’re hoping for even more.

Take a look at a picture from our kick-off meeting with our beautiful media network featuring partners such as La Republicca from Italy, El Confidencial and Newtral from Spain, Der Standard from Austria, Gazeta Wyborcza from Poland, Telex from Hungary, and Beta News Agency from Serbia. 

We're still looking for new partners

Engage your audience in political dialogue and put readers at the center of crucial debates about the future of Europe. Europe Talks creates trust and builds long-lasting relationships with your readers. Europe Talks 2021 runs from October to December. To participate, reach out to Hanna Israel. Take a look at this video from our partners from The Mirror to see the beauty of what Europe Talks has been able to create in the past.

Watch the video from The Mirror