Dear Friends of ELIANT,

Last December, the European Commission published version 3.0 of the Digital Competence Framework for Citizens. This is a detailed framework that sets out the skills that adults should have depending on how competent they want to be. Nevertheless, it is often understood as a curriculum framework for primary and secondary schools, combined with a high use of digital tools (including AI) from an early age. Worse still, the adults who make such plans forget how much digital literacy they have acquired themselves in adulthood or in intensive courses and how much they owe to their screen-free kindergarten and school years in terms of creativity, mental health and psychomotor skills.

And it is precisely these skills, which can only be acquired in the analogue world, that the European Commission is concerned with, describing the HERMMES approach as the one that “helps children and young people become digitally resilient, media-mature adults”. The HERMMES approach was developed by 15 partner organisations under the coordination of our member, the European Council for Steiner Waldorf Education (ECSWE), which we have already reported on here.

The latest addition to these activities is a 15-month HERMMES ambassador training programme, which starts in September 2026 and for which it is now possible to register here. Further information on the HERMMES approach for teachers and parents can be found here.

Democracy at risk
The balance of power is currently shifting around the world – including in Europe. The latter is seeking a new place in the power structure of the new world (dis)order that is currently emerging. At its core, Europe embodies diversity and inclusivity and the great challenge of working towards a common values-based identity. The rules-based value system of democratic social systems is wavering and giving way to authoritarian structures that do not shy away from attacks on legislative bodies either.

In order to protect Europe from renewed fragmentation and anti-democratic endeavours, reforms from below – broadly supported by civil society – must promote transparency and inclusive participation and demand it from their democratically elected parliamentarians.

ELIANT would like – wherever possible together with other initiatives – to pursue such a cultural change ‘from below’ by democratic means: we demand an education system that places the healthy development of children and young people at the centre and subordinates the demands for adaptation and performance from politics and business to this. This promotes a civil society that can advocate participation, co-operation and direct democracy instead of fitting in with the predetermined structures. However, our call for a rethink of the economy is particularly acute: just as there is no living organism that can grow indefinitely, economic life based on the ideal of unlimited growth will do more harm than good to planet Earth and its inhabitants in the long term, not least by constantly fuelling the battle over the distribution of resources and thus promoting further conflict and crisis hotspots. Demand-orientated circular thinking along the entire value chain is urgently needed in order to avoid further jeopardising the ecological balance.

Europe’s rules-based order is currently being challenged by a power-based order. This makes it all the more important to work in the longer term – such as Sekem for example – for a values-based order of social life, which can succeed if many people feel jointly responsible for it and do what they can within their sphere of influence.

With our sincere thanks for joining us in giving some thought to this, warm regards from the ELIANT team
Michaela Glöckler

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