Check out the experience of one of our students at ESA 2025

Arqus

25 Jun 2025

On 26, 27 and 28 May, six Arqus students from the universities of Granada, Graz, Minho, Padua, Vilnius and Wrocław attended the European Student Assembly (ESA25) on behalf of the Arqus Alliance.

The ESA25 is a joint initiative by students from European Universities Alliances (EUAs) that aims to provide a space for discussion, learning and developing policy recommendations.

Arume Morales, a student from the University of Granada, attended the event on behalf of the Arqus Alliance. You can read about her experience here:

The European Student Assembly (ESA) was held at the European Parliament for the fourth consecutive year. This event brings together over 220 students from 200 universities and 50 different countries to make policy suggestions that could be implemented at the European level. This has been the second year that Arqus has taken part in the event, with Lucas de Uña Ocampo and I (Arume Morales Aparicio) representing the University of Granada.

In previous months, we participated in meetings divided into panels, each one specialising in a specific topic. The purpose of these meetings was to prepare the policies that we ultimately voted on in Parliament. In the third panel, which was titled “AI, European Democracy and Civic Engagement”, we focused on flaws in the new AI Act and patches that need to be included.

To give you a clear idea of what one of these recommendations looks like, the proposal that received the most votes, which was presented in our panel, suggested adding a cross-cutting icon to AI-generated content to allow consumers to quickly identify videos, pictures or songs that have been artificially created.

Does this mean that the European Parliament will start legislating as such? Not yet. In fact, the most complicated part is yet to come. Now, it is time to contact politicians, members of Parliament and policymakers, and encourage them to listen to and value the proposals that we, as students, voted on. These policies were merely suggestions that we at the European Student Assembly wanted to put forward for consideration.

Ultimately, participants agreed that talking to each other had been encouraging. Recognising that we all face similar issues, and learning about the different solutions and approaches to overcoming them from different cultural perspectives, has only strengthened our commitment to advocating for real change. In a world where we are virtually connected yet appear increasingly divided and weak, it was inspiring to hear people propose and make changes with shared goals right from their city and university. It reminded us that things can be done differently.