With forces such as Brexit, rising populism and the global refugee emergency impinging on Europe’s future, 2017’s edition of The State of the Union focussed on the meaning of European citizenship in the 21st century under the theme “Building a People’s Europe.”It welcomed 1,400participants, 74 speakers and hosted 11 panels on topics including direct democracy, referenda and populism, free movement and social solidarity, the global refugee emergency, the economic and monetary integration of the EU, state secrecy and security in Europe. Key speakers included Antonio Tajani, Jean-Claude Junker, Michel Barnier, Federica Mogherini, Paolo Gentiloni, Kersti Kalijulaid, Werner Hoyer, Pietro Grasso, Vera Jourova and Ann Linde. This year’s special feature was the POLITICO Homepage Takeover, a two day “Homepage Takeover” which promoted The State of the Union and the Young Policy Leaders Programme. 2017 was impressive for press coverage with the publication of 119 international and 800 national articles, 19 video reportages which were broadcasted on national and local television and RAI’s live reportage from Palazzo Vecchio during the event. An estimated 6.58 million people viewed online coverage and coverage was shared 72.9K times.