About us
European Debate Initiative (EDI) was founded in 2018 and is a non-profit organisation that fosters discussions between professionals and young people on European and global affairs. Policy-makers and experts from various professional fields and countries are invited to share their experience with young people and give them the opportunity to learn from them, be inspired and to think of concrete solutions. With these debates, we promote European and global values of democracy and human rights, and hope to provide answers to some of the biggest challenges we face today.
Our aim is to give young people the opportunity to get a glimpse of what it is like to be a judge, a journalist, a diplomat, a politician, an activist or an expert in a particular field. We ask our guests to share their personal stories about their careers, which advice they would give to young people, and to share their knowledge and perspectives on today’s world. At the same time, we want to raise awareness about topics we consider crucial for young Europeans to understand.
EDI has been awarded the European Citizen's Prize 2021 by the European Parliament. We have received financial support from Tuborg Fondet and Europanævnet.
Francesca Knaus
Francesca Knaus is co-founder of the European Debate Initiative. She did her BA in European Studies majoring in EU law and her Master in East European Studies at the University of Amsterdam. Her interests revolve around EU politics, foreign affairs, human rights and climate policy with a particular focus on Central and Eastern Europe. Since 2022 she has been working as a policy advisor in the Bundestag.
Zoé Elkær Nicot
Co-founder of EDI, Zoé will complete her LLM in Law at the University of Copenhagen in 2025. She completed her BA in European Studies, majoring in EU law from the University of Amsterdam. She has worked at the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Danish Ministry of Environment and the Danish Parliament. She speaks fluent English, French and Danish.
Klara-Emilia Kajdi
Klara-Emilia Kajdi is French, German, Hungarian and was born and raised in Berlin. She did her BA in European Studies and her MA in East European studies at the University of Amsterdam. She is especially interested in human rights, politics and culture and their points of intersection, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe. She works as a writer, historical educator and in the cinema and film festival field in Amsterdam.
Ivan Mušo
Ivan Mušo was born and raised in Prague, Czech Republic. He did his Masters in European Policy at the University of Amsterdam, focusing on the development of the EU Taxonomy. Intrigued by the concepts of competitiveness and sustainability, he currently works for the Czech Ministry of Finance's Economic Transformation Unit.
John Michaelis
John Michaelis has a BSc in Psychology and a MSc in International Relations from the University of Amsterdam. John holds a fascination for diplomacy and conflict resolution, but also has a profound interest in human motivation and its consequences for policy-making and public attitudes. He values the EU as a peace-keeping entity and source of opportunity, driven by his own experiences of having been able to live and study across Europe.
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Melek Knaus
Melek Knaus is currently doing her BA in Security Studies at Leiden University in The Hague. Her interests include Counterterrorism, Energy Security, and the process of Radicalisation. In 2022, she spent three months in Moldova conducting research on the security impacts of the war in Ukraine and the consequences of covert foreign meddling in Moldova’s democracy. At EDI, her main focus is on domestic and foreign threats to European security. She is fluent in Turkish, German, French and English.