AEGEE was founded in Paris in 1985 under the name EGEE (Etats Généraux des Etudiants de l'Europe). The name relates to the Aegean Sea where democracy was created 2,000 years ago. It is pronounced as if it were a French word "aégée". The English name is the European Students' Forum.

    EGEE wanted to be a platform for young Europeans to discuss the future of Europe and to present their ideas to the officials of the EU institutions and national governments. At the time, EGEE only focused on the EU Member States. However, in 1991 AEGEE began to develop its network in the EFTA countries and in Central and Eastern Europe .

    Since its creation, more than 100,000 young Europeans have become members of the AEGEE network, and AEGEE has managed many successful European projects, e.g.: Euromanagers (today run by EMDS), Peace Academy, Turkish-Greek Civic Dialogue and the most famous: Summer Universities -which are successfully run for over 18 years and every year involve around 3000 young people.
Objectives

    AEGEE is one of Europe's largest interdisciplinary student associations and it’s main aim is to promote European Integration and development of tolerant civil society.

    AEGEE works to foster democracy, human rights, tolerance, cross-boarder co-operation, mobility and European dimension in education.

    AEGEE is a voluntary, non-profit organisation that operates without any link to a political party. It is represented in 240 university cities, in 42 countries across Europe and has about 15,000 members.
Structure

    AEGEE does not make use of national structures. Instead, AEGEE works in parallel on the local and European level. AEGEE provides opportunity for individual members from local level to get directly involved in European Level activities and projects.

    European level:

    AGORA (General Assembly gathering 800-1000 participants)-biannual
    European Board’s meeting - EBM (statutory) annual
    Comité Directeur
    European board of directors, working at the Head Office in Brussels
    Liaison Officers to work with international institutions and organisations
    Commissions (juridical, audit, members, network)
    Working groups (thematic: e.g.International Politics WG, supporting:e.g. Public Relations WG and others : e.g. Pool of Trainers- AEGEE Academy).

    Local level:
    local groups, in academic cities, so-called antennae, where people directly implement AEGEE aims in a way that serves best the needs of their local community.