Conference
European Pulse Forumwith POLITICO and beBartlet
The first edition of POLITICO and beBartlet's forum on the future of Europe, with live captions on the screens at CosmoCaixa, including the closing session with Pedro Sánchez.
The forum
The European Pulse Forum is a forum on the future of Europe, a joint initiative of the digital news outlet POLITICO and beBartlet, a Barcelona-based consultancy. Its first edition was held in the city on 9 and 10 April 2026, and the sessions on the 10th took place at the CosmoCaixa Science Museum.
It brought together policymakers and business leaders to discuss the issues setting the continent’s course: energy, mobility, security and defence, investment and innovation. The programme was set to open each topic with the results of the forum’s own poll, followed by a debate.
Why it mattered
The forum started from a diagnosis: as political shifts in the United States, China and elsewhere reshape the geopolitical landscape, Europe increasingly finds itself alone in facing its challenges. To find out what Europeans think about the way forward, it drew on a poll carried out in six European Union countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain) on how people see Europe’s most pressing problems and how they believe their leaders should tackle them. The idea was to broaden the debate with citizens’ voices.
The closing session
On the afternoon of 10 April, the Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, closed the forum at CosmoCaixa. He began by thanking Catalan President Salvador Illa and Barcelona’s Mayor, Jaume Collboni. He also greeted the European Commission’s Executive Vice-President for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy, Stéphane Séjourné; the president of the “la Caixa” Foundation; the CEO of POLITICO; and the president of beBartlet.
In his speech, Sánchez called for regaining the ambition of the European project and daring to imagine how far a united Europe can go. He argued that electrifying the economy and boosting renewables are the foundation of security and prosperity, and warned that turning inwards in an increasingly tense world would be a mistake. He also hoped that many more editions would follow this first one.
What we set up
Our Captions put live captions on the screens in the room, and Pedro Sánchez’s speech could be read on them too. The words of whoever was speaking turned into text the moment they were said, in full view of the audience, without anyone having to download or set up anything.
