What does the European Union mean to you? What are its benefits? In these turbulent times, the latest Animate Europe competition is challenging comic creators worldwide to come up with a comic addressing the value of the EU - and four finalists will have their work published in anthology in 2019.

In 2013, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom launched the international comics competition Animate Europe for the first time and has done so since then every other year. In 2015 they asked the artists for stories on the future of the European Union, Europe Fast Forward, in 2017 they were looking for comics on how to re-animate the European Union, in Re-Animate Europe.

This year's topic is Europe+ - and the organisation is looking for to stories on the added value of the European Union. What are the advantages of the European Union? What did the EU do well according to you – in general terms or in your personal experience? 

There is no entry fee for the competition and it is open to anyone, worldwide. All you need to do is register and send in the first finished page as well as a summary of the story you would like to tell us by Saturday 15th December 2018.

Beginning of January 2019, the jury consisting of the Director of Lyon BD, Mathieu Diez, Curator, producer and script writer Kalle Hakkola, comics artist Lucie Lomová, the Director of the Lakes International Comic Festival Julie Tait and comics artist Judith Vanistendael will select four finalists. These finalists will receive a grant of €800 to finish an eight-page comic story by Sunday 31st March 2019.

The winner will be announced at our award ceremony at the Belgian Comic Strip Center end of April and will receive a prize of €500 and all four finalists’ entries will be published in an anthology.

• Full details of the competition, in French are here | For the terms and conditions in English, click here . And here for terms and conditions in French . To register, click here