The Europe of cafes and cultural third places

When asked what might form the foundation of Europe’s cultural identity, philosopher George Steiner remarked that “Europe is made up of cafés”. “If one were to draw a map of cafes, one would have the general outline of the European idea,” he wrote in The Idea of Europe (2005). Political clubs, opinion factories, places for artistic creation, intellectual rivalry and romantic encounters: cafes are places where the mind is stimulated, conversation is invigorated and passions are stoked. “Have they not been, for several centuries, the essential fuel of the political and artistic creation of European modernity?” asked historian Emmanuelle Loyer in Une brève histoire culturelle de l’Europe (2017).

Building a network of “Europa-cafés”, above all in rural areas, is one of the “Seven ideas for a European Cultural Recovery Plan” put forward by Giuliano Da Empoli. Several European associations including EuropaNow!, co-founded by Eric Jozesf, have joined forces under the codename EuReCa (European Republican Cafés) to develop a network of cafes deemed places of European citizenship. But alongside the traditional cafes that make up an idea of modern Europe, is now not also the time to consider a new generation of places for socialising, creating and reinventing socioeconomic and cultural models: cultural third places?