meus 2015 newspaper no1

5Model European Union Strasbourg 201Strasbourg Snitcher

Trying to avoid Europeans losing their sav-ings to future banking failures, the European Central Bank is tightening its grip on banks in the euro zone. On the sideline, member states worry about losing control over their national banking systems.

The Royal Bank of Scotland, the Anglo Irish Bank and the Banco Privado Portu-gues: these are just three in the long line of European banks that were bailed out during the economic downturn. The cri-sis that saw banks falling like dominoes and left taxpayers footing the bill.

The outbreak of the financial crisis in 2008 and the consequences that fol-lowed have forced the EU and its mem-ber states to undergo a self-examination: What went wrong? And how can a sim-ilar economic disaster within the group of eurozone countries, where economies are so highly interdependent, be pre-vented from happening in the future?

In response, in June 2012, government leaders agreed to create a banking union. In short, the purpose is to stabilise the financial markets and to secure that the next time a bank is on the brink of bank-ruptcy, it will be the banks themselves – not the European citizens – who have to pay:

”We are learning the lessons of the crisis and creating a sounder financial system,” Jonathan Hill, EU Commissioner for Fi-

nancial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union, said in a press release in December.

The EU’s new financial safety net is made out of three main components: all banks in the eurozone has to comply with a common set of rules, which block unnecessary risk-taking and forces every bank to keep a financial safeguard for future tough times. The European Central Bank (ECB) has then been ap-pointed the grand supervisor, which in short means they will act as the ‘bank-ing police’. If things still go wrong and a bank is at risk of failure, a so-called reso-lution board is set up decides whether to bailout the bank with money from a fund, which all the banks have chipped into.

The European Banking Union (EBU) includes all states within the eurozone. However, in order to keep the door open for a potential EU-wide banking union later on, member states that are not part of the euro are allowed to join if they wish.

But far from everyone has been satisfied all the way with the banking union’s attempt to act as the solution for avoid-ing another debt crisis. In Germany, for example, smaller banks initially raised the concern that the outside supervi-sion of the ECB would make the system less effective. And while eurozone-members such as France, Spain, Portu-gal and Greece are generally in favour of the banking union, voices outside of the common currency has been more

sceptical. They claim that the Commis-sion proposed a EU level solution for a eurozone problem.

Countries such Poland and the Czech Republic fear that the EBU will have a detrimental effect on their own bank-ing sectors, no matter what they do, as banks from eurozone-members such as Germany and France own around 65% of the Central and Eastern European banking landscape. Meanwhile, coun-tries including Denmark, Hungary and Latvia agree that member states should coordinate their efforts. However, they insist that this should happen on the ini-tiative of the national authorities - not on the order of the ECB.

At the moment, only Eurozone-mem-bers can be represented in the supervi-sory system under the ECB. This would inevitably mean less influence for the non-eurozone-states, and they are there-fore reluctant to place their national bank supervision under the control of the ECB.

At a Polish-British forum last spring, Poland’s central bank governor Marek Belka explained:

“Non-euro zone countries will not have access to the liquidity of the European Central Bank... this is a fundamental problem.”

So far, Bulgaria and Romania are the only states that have made notable steps towards voluntarily joining the new banking club within the near future.

Sunday, 12. April 2015

Member States Entangled in Eurozone’s New Safety Net

Daily News of Model European Union Strasbourg 2015Issue No 01/15

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IN THIS ISSUE

REPRESENTATION FOR WOMEN

Not only in social terms, but in econom-ic terms also, gender equality is of the utmost importance...

Page 2

DATA REGULATION

Everyone in Strasbourg is looking for-ward to hearing the discussions that are going to take place all week long in the European Parliament...

Page 3

EU ENLARGEMENT

European Union enlargement is the process through which countries are officially recognised as members of the EU...

Page 4

DIFFUSE STRASBOURG

The European Union has come a long way. However, the evolution path has started to reverse.

Page 7

Rikke Mathiassen

Issue No 01/152 | Sunday, 12. April 2015 — Strasbourg Snitcher . Daily News —

Nowadays, 46% of people employed across the EU are women, addition-ally; on average they have a higher level of education than their male colleagues. 34% of working women have some form of tertiary level education compared to 28% of men and still, women remain under represented. This also represents a lack of return on investment that is cru-cial to companies and general prosperity in the European Union. So no only in social terms, but in economic terms also, gender equality is of the utmost impor-tance. Various Member States have tak-en the necessary steps to promote gen-der equality in company boardrooms; however, despite this, progress is still slow and is not showing the essential results.

In recent figures dating from April 2013 we are shown that women account for just 16.6% or one in six of board mem-bers (European Commission) with the highest levels of female representation of women on boards being in Finland (29.1%) and Latvia (29%), closely fol-lowed by France (26.8) and Sweden (26.5%). We must congratulate these countries for having the highest female representation, but we must not for-get that less than 30% is not progress enough. Women have fought for years to achieve the same rights of men and that fight is not over until we have equal rep-resentation of men and women. These statistics show that there are Member

States where men hold at least four of every five board positions and what’s worse is that in Romania, Cyprus, Esto-nia, Greece, Portugal and Malta, women hold less than one in ten positions!

These eye-opening statistics prove that not one EU Member State is close to the EU’s 40% objective and that more than two thirds are not even half way to meeting it and highlights the harsh truth that new measures need to be put into place to bring about effective and sub-

stantial change. Furthermore, the fact that the share of women board members from 2003 to 2010 only grew at an av-erage rate of just 0.5% (European Com-mission) from 8.5% to 11.5% reinforces the notion that rate of change was unac-ceptably slow.

There have been plans set in motion over the recent years and the economic dimension of gender balance has become increasingly prominent in national, European and international areas. The

A Call for Increased Representation for Women in the EU

European Commission launched the ‘Women on the Board Pledge for Eu-rope’ (2011) and in 2012 the Commis-sion adopted a proposal for a Directive with an objective of 40% for under-rep-resented sex among non- executive di-rectors by 2020. It is positive to see that initiatives are being made to promote gender equality but women deserve more than just initiatives, they deserve results and real representation.

Almost 27 million minors are at risk of poverty or social exclusion in the EU, according to a recent survey by the European Commission. This statistic stands currently at 28 percent; it means that one out of every four persons in Eu-rope live under the poverty threshold, which is higher than any other group and for the EU population as a whole –a total of approximately 24 percent. Ad-ditionally, nine percent of children live in places where not anyone is employed, and 11.8 percent lack proper food or clothes.

The previous dates evidence the failure of the combat against child starvation over the past decades, especially the Europe 2020 strategy, which aimed to reduce by 20 million the number of poor in the European Union by the year 2020. The lack of a common specific policy

has ballasted its development, as many countries do not proportionate enough funds to prevent the problem or even not include any contribution. In these cases, the reduction in funding for essential public, social and healthcare services is having an adverse effect on the society quality.

Nevertheless, in the context of the eco-nomic crisis, the situation is unlikely to improve, as UNICEF’s information underscores: during the past few years there was a remarkable increase in rates of famine in the United Kingdom, Italy, Greece and Spain. A prominent case can be found in Spain -the fifth country by population-, which is the second state with the highest rate of child poverty, only exceed by Romania. Specifically, the child poverty rate in the southern country rose from 28.2 percent to 36.3 percent between 2008 and 2012, while the eastern state had an increasing of

nearly 40 percent in the same period. However, there is also good news from Bulgaria and other Eastern countries, where the rates descend slightly (aver-age of 10 percent in some cases).

Among the experts, there is no doubt about the cause. The social impact of the austerity measures -including budget cuts at local levels- have had detrimen-tal effects on society, a situation that can last long into adult life if a solution is not found. Unfortunately, the Europe 2020 strategy has failed in its objective: pov-erty and exclusion are still in advanced, as well as youth unemployment dates are raising to unexpected figures. In other words, this question is not resolved yet.

The results achieved do not allow the EU to slow down, although it looks like Europe is on track to stumble over the same stone: many words and few facts - this is not the first strategy to be fol-lowed by the European administration,

The Fight Against Child Poverty in the European Union – Unresolvedso it is worth to review and check how the planning fits into the existing EU institutional and government design-. So, the European Union has a challenge ahead: to build up real policies to solve the scarcities of the strategy. However, the member states’ response is not equal to the expected and it is a big deal to defeat: most of member countries have made not any progress on developing poverty reduction policies to ensure social cohesion. For this reason, the EU should encourage everyone and also im-plement common strategies and plans that aim to reduce child poverty, but from the perspective of child rights.

Finally, the best of Europe 2020 is that they are laying the groundwork to es-tablish an agile coordination framework, but you need to be realistic: only when the economies of the European countries are sound may pursue with hope of suc-cess the strategic goals.

Sian Morgan

Francisco Daniel Garcés

Issue No 01/15 Sunday, 12. April 2015 | 3— Strasbourg Snitcher . Daily News —

On the first day of the session, every-one in Strasbourg is looking forward to hearing the discussions that are going to take place all week long in the European Parliament. One of the biggest issues of this week is whether or not the mem-bers of the Parliament and the members of the Council are going to find an agree-ment on the adaptation of the personal data legislation.

Remember that drunk picture you de-leted last month ? Ever thought of what your future boss would say if he found it ? And what about that stupid blog of yours you wrote when you were 13 ? Yes you know exactly which one I am talk-ing about. I could probably find it on Google by the way. Oh yes, you would definitely be in trouble.

Data protection issues are everywhere and concern everyone. You, me, most European citizens, and even very impor-tant people. The NSA scandal, WikiLe-aks recently showed us that our data was not as well protected as we could have thought. Personal information and the right to keep them secret and safe has become a burning issue, especially in the European Union. Indeed, a recent rul-ing of the European Court of Justice has raised the question whether it was time for the EU to adopt a new Data Protec-

tion Regulation.

In 2012, the Commission already had a proposal, which passed by the Parlia-ment and whose fate now remains with the Council. The future of the regula-tion however, is uncertain since the member States have been renegotiating their own agreement with the United States.

If some argue that the decision should be left to individ-ual member states, the proposal still deals with issues that are common to every European citizen.

Firstly, the pro-posal stipulated the right to be forgot-ten which enforces the possibility for an individual to ask for the removal of links of prejudicial data, a right that was already included in the 1995 data protection directive and confirmed by the judgement of the Eu-ropean Court of Justice of 2014 Google Spain SL vs Agencia Espanola de Pro-teccion de Datos and Mario Gonzalez. This right is not absolute and the citizen has to prove that the link is no longer rel-

evant for it to be removed, but that leads us to the second issue of this proposal : how are internet companies reacting to the proposal ?

It is obviously not good news for private enterprises and some of their founders even talked about censorship. Google founder Eric Schmidt has criticized the complexity of the procedure since

the search engine had to install a re-quest form after the Commission came up with the proposal. Google says it is hard for the company to be both judge and executioner which shows us the lack of cooperation be-tween companies and the European Court of Justice.

Besides those criti-cisms, we cannot deny that a thou-

sand of jobs are being created every year by communication and technology com-panies, the legislation must therefore prevent harming this field which has an important place in Europe. It is also about the picture Europe is giving to itself : the proposal has been very criti-cized in the United States for example

There is a challenge that politicians fail to acknowledge. What kind of idea is putting together a population of around 700 million people, each with different backgrounds, but still expecting them to form a strong and united union? A union that can represent all these voices and be competitive towards its neighbours. All twenty eight member states decided to delegate some of the powers in the name of the Union and through which it op-erates to the outside world. At a global level, the European Union is indeed taken as one entity, as a whole, repre-sented by European leaders through one vote. In the World Trade Organisation, the European countries are represented by the European Union. Same applies for the G7 (or G8 as some prefer); the European Union is represented as one of the eight members. This one vote is shared with twenty eight member states, comprising of around 700 million people. Do these 700 million people have the same opinion? Highly unlikely. Yet, their voice is through a shared vote.

Their diverging opinions arise from structural differences between the coun-tries. Not every country has the same amount of resources, potentialities and most importantly mind set. Within and across the member states, there are in-herent differences in cultures; linguistic divergences to start with. Value sys-tems, religion, social development and traditions are not the same across the Union. Although there might be con-verging perceptions, one country’s na-tional hero is not the other. Mentalities tend to differ across North and South, East and West. Even though the Iron Curtain has fallen, scholars such as Lau-ra Gongola, still argue that the effects are lasting. She compares the East ver-sus West divide due to deeply ingrained differences in family and lifestyle. Add to that forty-five years of communism which eventually results in an unequal share of resources, an uneven develop-ment process and most importantly divergent mentalities. Criticism of the impossible tasks for these countries to catch up is common; how can they adopt to the EU model, without first deal-ing with local realities and challenges?

This certainly is a reason for the differ-ent mentalities across the Union. This underlying issue creates only more chal-lenges. Aligning political objectives is difficult if mentalities do not match. At the domestic level, the struggles are not necessarily the same in a fellow member state; varying levels of unemployment, diverging social welfare systems, differ-ent stages of economic growth, etc. As a result, the inhabitants of each country do not have the same wishes in terms of politics. This is one challenge which can be attributed to varying mentalities. A proof of this is the inhabitants’ identifi-cation: people still identify themselves with the national country first, accord-ing to the Eurobarometer report. First the country, then Europe.

Does this mean that we need to give up on this project we call Europe? No. Admitting the problem is part of the solution. There needs to be a will to thrive further as one global Union. It sounds idealistic, but the reality does not have to be so far. The Eurobarom-eter report also brought up that people can see themselves as inhabitants of their

Looking Beyond the Cultural Dividenational country and of Europe. What is necessary is understanding of different cultures and perceptions. A sentence our generation is tirelessly bored with is “you are the leaders of tomorrow.” But there is a lot more truth in it. There-fore, it is extremely important that cul-tural understanding is created at our level. Cultural exchanges and projects across the Union are valuable for the development of our generation’s mind set. Think of projects such as Erasmus program. Allowing us to experience the life style of other students within the Union, is one of the many benefits. Events such as Model European Union helps us understand the complexities of the political scene we are experiencing. Representing a position that is perhaps not your own, eventually forces you to look at issues from another perspective. The youth is as interconnected as ever before, and this will only help to foster a stronger cooperation within the Un-ion. Cultural differences are perhaps present, but they can only form an asset if there is understanding between coun-tries.

Anouk Heili

Alexandra van Walraven

and the old continent is always shown as the late one concerning new technolo-gies. To keep attracting companies and to save its place in the international com-petition, the European Union also has to adapt its legislation to modern issues.

The proposal plans, indeed, on punish-ing companies that would share personal data with a third party. It is going to be up to the the European Council and the European parliament to decide whether this is doable or not, knowing that con-flicting data protection rules in different countries would disrupt international exchanges but also that individuals might be unwilling to transfer personal data abroad if they were uncertain about the level of protection in other countries.

On a proposal that is dealing at the same time with human rights, digital rights and economics, we can not wait to see how the EU representantives are going to discuss this very recent and interest-ing issue here in Strasbourg.

Data Regulation


Editors Sian Morgan Isotta Rossoni

Journalists Francisco Daniel Garcés Maria Salomé Fernandes Anouk Heili Rikke Mathiassen Daniela Prugger Alessandra Sinno Diana Tavares Alexandra van Walraven

Impressum

European Union enlargement is the pro-cess through which countries are offi-cially recognised as members of the EU, thus historically realising the idea of the European Union. Indeed, according to Article 49 (ex Article 49 TEU) of the Treaty on European Union, all Europe-an States politically supporting all those values quoted by Article 2, namely hu-man dignity, freedom, democracy, equal-ity, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities, promoted in an equal, respectful and democratic soci-ety, may apply to take part in the Union.

To be admitted, every country must respect specific criteria and accession conditions, formulated by the EU lead-ers’ summit in Copenhagen in 1993, the so-called Copenhagen criteria. These conditions are partly political as every country needs to have stable local insti-tutions which guarantee and promote a peaceful society in the name of democra-cy and fundamental human rights. Some of the conditions are economic, as coun-tries also need an internal functioning economy to be encouraged in being part of trade and market competitions in the EU; the ability to take on the obligations of membership, economically, politically and also monetarily.

This innate values expansion force started to be shown in practice 1973, when Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom joined the Union, followed

by Greece (1981), Spain and Portugal (1986), Austria, Finland and Sweden (1995). In 2004, there was the biggest enlargement ever in the history of Euro-pean Union, which involved at least ten countries, including Romania and Bul-garia only three years later. On the 1th July of 2013, Croatia became the 28th EU member. At the beginning of the same year, the EU counted eight more countries, between candidates and po-tential candidates, six of them belong-ing to Western Balkan region: Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, the former Yugo-slav Republic of Macedonia, both Bos-nia and Herzegovina and Kosovo (under UN Security Resolution 1244).

Serbia seems to be very close to the unanimously admission.

Its diplomatic relations with European Union begun formally in 2003, during the Thessaloniki European Council, when Serbia was chosen as a potential candidate country. In 2008, a European partnership for Serbia was implement-ed, which identified priorities and pro-cedures for the admission application. One year later, Serbia formally applied. Only in March 2012, the official status of candidate country was recognized to Serbia and in 2013, a Stabilisation and Association Agreement between the EU and Serbia become active, coming into force. At the end of the same year, the European Council agreed to organ-ize the First Intergovernmental Confer-ence with Serbia, which took place on 21st of January 2014, opening the official processes to Serbia’s accession negotia-

tions.

Recently, on the 19-20th of March, Bel-grade was theatre of the third meeting of EU-Serbian Stabilisation and Asso-ciation Parliamentary Committee: aim of the meeting was the analysis of all the most important aspects of the relations between Serbia and the European Un-ion. Mr Eduard Kukan, form European Parliament, and Dr Vladimir Orilić, from National Assembly of the Repub-lic of Serbia, co-ordinated the meeting, attended by more than 60 participants, from important institutions, both Euro-pean and Serbian.

The most significant topics discussed are mostly related to Serbia’s European Union integration and the implementa-tion of the Stabilisation and Associa-tion Agreement mentioned above, such as the state of play of EU-Serbia rela-tions, pre-accession assistance to Serbia, Serbia’s preparations to open negotia-tions (including a situation of national minorities), dialogue on normalisation of relations between Belgrade and Pristina, regional cooperation, develop-ments in economy (EU-Serbia SAPC, Declaration and recommendations); in particular, minority rights and diplo-matic relations with Kosovo led to very interesting and various discussions dur-ing this two-days long meeting. Their importance is crucial for the admission itself to the Union; indeed, in addition of the standard accession criteria, there are additional conditions that Western

Alessandra Sinno

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EU Enlargement: Historical Introduction and a Short Focus on Serbia

continued on page 5 ...


continued ... EU Enlargement

Balkan countries have to respect, such as regional cooperation and good rela-tions with neighbouring countries. The meeting closed with the active discus-sion about the Declaration and recom-mendations.

It is clear that the EU Enlargement pre-sents new political and cultural perspec-tives, involving geographic areas which always played fundamental roles on world politics, especially during more recent times. In particular, Balkans, the European cultural bridge between the West and the East, one of the most

beautiful anthropological mosaics, al-lowed huge human flows during the his-tory, which produced great beauties. It is a necessary political process to make Europeans more aware of their cultural identities and historical communitarian memory. To conclude, quoting Štefan Füle, European Commissioner for the

EU Enlargement, “the EU Enlarge-ment policy makes Europe a safer and a more stable place; it allows us to grow stronger and to promote our values, and enables us to assume our role as a global player on the world stage”.

As MEU participants, we will soon be preparing for our trip to Strasbourg. We will pack our bags and depart from home, or perhaps from another Euro-pean country, where we are currently working or studying. We won’t require any visas; we will just have to board a plane, bus or train and show our pass-ports or ID cards upon arrival. Passport control is usually quite swift for Euro-pean citizens travelling within the Un-ion, so we are unlikely to be held up for long or be subjected to extensive secu-rity checks. Most of us won’t even have to worry about looking for a foreign ex-change desk. If we are thirsty or drowsy after our trip and wish to purchase a bottle of water or a coffee, we need only rummage in our pockets and extract a couple of euro coins. Communication with airport or hotel staff will hardly prove arduous: not only do most Euro-peans speak English, but many are also fluent in several other languages. Finally, no real obstacle stands in the way of us

extending our stay past the end of the Conference, except for money or time constraints, of course.

All of these considerations are com-monplace. We are so accustomed to our lives as Europeans, that we often give them for granted. Yet, we are free. Free to travel across the European continent, free to study and work in a Member State of our choosing, free to pursue the opportunities that are better suited to our desires and aspirations. Our genera-tion, and those after us, can fully relish the benefits of the EU. Should the Un-ion crumble, our personal lives would probably change dramatically, from the grand scheme of things down to the day-to-day technicalities. Just like for many of us the EU signifies liberty and possibility, migrants fleeing war, pov-erty or famine in their home countries dream of Europe as the land of freedom. Yet, chances are that their reveries will vanish quick as a wink. For to safeguard freedom within the continent, we have built a fortress around our borders.

But perhaps, evoking the popular meta-phor of the ‘fortress’ may prove inaccu-rate. The reality of border control is er-ratic, muddled and generally irrational. Those who had hoped to attain freedom in Europe, become entangled in a suf-focating web of bureaucracy. While the maxim ‘innocent until proven guilty’ governs legal proceedings involving European citizens, extra-EU migrants are reserved separate treatment. The burden of proof is on them to prove their motives and intentions, and to disprove their guilt in so-called ‘crimes of mo-bility’. Unlike most of us, they cannot cherry-pick among Member States. The Dublin Regulation binds them to the first country of arrival and denies them any freedom of choice. Asylum shopping is no option. Yet, our ‘culture of disbe-lief’ goes beyond the mere denial of freedom of choice for undocumented mi-grants and asylum seekers. It frequently results in the denial of liberty, one of the founding values of our liberal democra-cies. Migrants- including, regrettably, children, pregnant women and victims

Fortress Europe? Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?

of torture- are often held in detention centres for relatively long periods of time, and may have to endure inhumane and degrading conditions.

Some of us may ask: why should we care? Because human rights are being breached, people are often being sub-jected to unwarranted suffering, and our current policies threaten to create even more friction among Member States, who incidentally, all feel like they have enough on their plates when it comes to immigration. More crucially, because how we treat the most vulnerable has a bearing on who we are. Europe was born of a post-war project of democ-racy, peace and liberty. In acknowledg-ing this, can we really turn a blind eye to what happens at our borders, in our immigration detention centres and po-lice stations? It looks like there’s a lot of work to do for Europe to fulfill its prom-ises. As young Europeans we can work towards this goal together. So let’s roll up our sleeves and get the discussion started.

Isotta Rossoni

... continued from page 4 ...


They are the voices we hear in our headphones, telling us what the impor-tant figures are saying, when we don’t understand the actual words. But what does it take to be a good interpreter? And how can someone get there?

The task for an interpreter is to faithful-ly translate and reproduce what is being said in EU’s sessions and press confer-

ences. Mostly, they do it from English to their mother tongues, but the topics are complex in the Institutions these days, and they require preparation and read-ing long and serious paperwork. This happens because it is asked of MEPs to give a pre-session statement.

Núria Galarza, one of the interpreters in the Spanish booth, explains how much it is more than just translating. “We do not only translate words, but meaning, intention and culture. Therefore, it is essential to be aware of the cultural gap between the speaker and the audience or the two parties of a meeting so as to send the message with all the possible nuances”.

Being a voice for the EU is no easy task, as the interpreter for the Spanish booth

explains, “we are always facing chal-lenges and solving them in two or three seconds, no time to over think it! An ac-cent, speed, terminology, cultural refer-ences, jokes... That’s why we need ex-tensive training and a wide knowledge of both languages and cultures. But, in any case, for me it is the most amazing

job in the world, because it’s different and once you are in the booth, you never know what is going to happen”. In this particular workplace, the interpreters work in pairs, so on top of everything, one must be in tune with their partner, to ensure a well performed service.

Marta Makos, interpreting for the Polish booth this year, signed up for the ride thanks to her school. “Last year, one of my teachers, who taught me note taking, informed my group of the possibility of

working in the interpretation booth in the EP. I decided to give it a try and sent my application”.

During this week’s events in the Euro-pean Parliament, the interpreters will be asked to do multilingual interpreting in sessions and conferences, and consec-

The Role of the Interpreterutive interpreting in council meetings. There will also be the opportunity to practice the so called “whispered inter-preting”, where the interpreting will be done at the side of the MEPs, in the actual plenary. The languages provided will be Czech, French, Slovak, Spanish, German, Hungarian, Italian and Polish.

Now, as the event is near, the young in-terpreter explains that the secret to suc-cess lies in knowledge as well as prac-tice. “Basically, the more you know, the better you are. It is much easier to inter-pret when you are familiar with a given topic/domain and when you understand what is going on. What is more, if you want to become a good interpreter you need to practice a lot in order to improve your reflexes, memory (useful in consec-utive interpreting) and become stress-resistant”, she says with a smile.

Núria Galarza shares the view of her colleague about the importance of knowledge and practice, and adds that a good deal of current affairs knowledge is needed, “moreover, for me it is always very useful to create my own speeches with the vocabulary I need to learn, i.e. in this case, with the Banking Union and Data Protection. That’s a nice way to put every word in context, because if not, we only learn isolated words”.

MEU2015 will run in Strasbourg from the 11th to the 18th of April, gathering about 150 young people from all over Europe to simulate the role of MEPs, Members of the Council, Journalists, In-terpreters and Lobbyists, in a one week experience on how the EU works in all its different corners.

Less Europe – that is - as last year’s Eu-ropean parliament elections revealed – is what many EU-citizens seem to want for their future. In various European Member states a similar pattern has be-come noticeable: Eurosceptic, populist, nationalist, discriminatory - even racist or anti-Semitic - but especially anti-im-migrant parties appear to have become a permanent political phenomenon. How-ever, what unifies all of them – extreme left-wing as well as extreme right-wing politics - is their fundamental criticism of the political establishment.

Sixty years after European integration first took its course, right-wing extrem-ism turned to be socially acceptable again, even to be found in the main-

stream. Europe’s problems are evident: ascending (youth) unemployment and poverty, the financial and Greek govern-ment-debt crisis, criticisable austerity measures in southern Europe as well as increased immigration. Motivated by these factors, some people may consider supporting and voting for extremist positions and parties to be a statement for their dissatisfaction, without neces-sarily identifying with them. They hold hostile attitudes towards foreigners, but mainly want to state their protest by affecting public policies by means of voting. Yet, radical right political par-ties clearly have a tendency to attract extreme right individuals.

In France, Marine Le Pen’s extreme right-wing party, Front National, won the European Parliament elections 2014 – for the first time. Also, the UK Inde-

pendence Party celebrates a historic vic-tory. The same happened in Denmark, where the far-right Danish People’s party (DPP) triumphed and in Austria, Poland, Hungary, Finland, Germany and Greece, Eurosceptic, right wing parties could gain a considerable number of votes in the near future.

Sometimes it’s the Euro, sometimes the whole European Union and lately it is primarily immigration, the battle against terrorism and Islam that rule their political agenda and campaigns. Most European member states lack a clear legal instrument or anti-discrim-ination law. At the same time, all those parties mentioned before dispraise not only capitalism, globalization, open borders, a common currency, in order to denunciate a “system”, which in their eyes does not pay adequate attention

Extreme Europeand listen to what the people want and need - but also practise cultural, sexual, ethnic and religious discrimination. By criticizing they use enemy images, po-lemics and address to the peoples fears, but on the other hand the do not come up with solutions. Thereby, they generally sympathize and maintain a rather good relationship with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. In Putin they see an ally whenever there is the necessity to de-fend threatened values – like tradition, family and Christianity.

It is important not to overrate the cur-rent development. Alas, the political establishment and large parts of the me-dia mainly focus on the Monetary Union and a possible “Graccident” while little

Diana Tavares

Daniela Prugger

continued on page 7 ...


Diffuse StrasbourgWelcome to civic intervention. Welcome to youth decision-making. Welcome to Strasbourg.

The European Union has come a long way. However, the evolution path has started to reverse. “I want to destroy the EU, not Europe!” stated Marine le Pen in an interview in June 2014 for the Spiegel. The National’s Front ideology is shared by other politicians within Europe. There is Nigel Farage in UK, Mario Borgheso in Italy, Morten Mess-erschmidt in Denmark, and the list con-tinues. It is not that eurocepticism is a new concept, but the strength it is gain-ing through the increasing popularity of extremist parties, constitutes a reason for worries. What is destroying Europe is not terrorism, but the death of its orig-inal values. And it is up to you to rebuild them, to spread them, to make justice to a system that has done so much already.

Even though there were always dis-putes on whether there should be a fed-eralist or intergovernmental approach to the EU, opinions converged on the need for long term peace. And the first step towards it was, undoubtly, the

cooperation between France and Ger-many. States’ egoistic attempts to fulfil their own interests – France wanted to control Germany’s material capabilities to produce armament, and Germany required integration and expansion of trade market – promoted a deviating behaviour from the traditional state survival view, since it resulted in di-minish autonomy due to common rules and imposed norms. Dialogues on peace stopped being just a dialogue as eco-nomic and trade cooperation created the columns for a project of tolerance, share, and openness. Strasburg repre-sents this. The importance of having monthly plenary sessions here surpasses convenience. It is due to the symbolic relevance of the city, and its proximity to Germany. The franco-german border is the ideal location, as it represents two main forces of the European Union that must be in balance if development of the Community is to continue. Also, taking into consideration France current ten-dency to anti-Europeanism, the impor-tance of having one of the institutions located in its territory also impacts the importance of France in the construction

of the project and might enhance the ad-herence of people to it.

In fact, from an historical contextualiza-tion, Strasbourg has bounced between France and Germany for several times. Originally called Argentoratum, it was a Roman camp of strategic importance because of its international crossroads. It would later become “Strassbourg”, a free city under the Germanic Holy Roman Empire in 1262. It would turn French when annexed by Louis XV in the seventeenth century. Times of mod-ernisation and growth in industry came, until the Franco-Prussian war. In 1870 it was captured by Germany and would only return to France after WWI in 1918. But history could not help repeat-ing itself, and during WWII Strasbourg was again taken over by Germany. In 1944 it was liberated and returned to France, up until the present. The city is now a symbol of reconciliation between the two states.

Symbolic ties apart, many are concerned about the Strasbourg “travelling-cir-cus”, which according to a report by

Klaus Welle has an annual cost of 102 million euros and an estimated 20.000 tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. So make the most out of this experience, and give proof that youth generations are willing to take part in the Euro-pean Union. Because for much money and oxygen people might have, without prospects for peace there will be no pos-sibility to enjoy it.

A project as MEU Strasbourg allows the diffusion of the concept of Europe and the construction of real spirit of be-long and citizenship. It is an investment on peace, a weapon against ignorance. It should allow you to realise that you have more similarities than differences and the contact with people from multiple backgrounds should gradually delete from memory any political conflict or racial prejudice. If you are attending MEU, you probably have a rare opti-mism towards the future, the belief that the path should be towards better con-dition of life, bet on education, multicul-turalism, and peace. And for those goals nationality is a secondary detail.

attention is paid to the undeniable rise of the far right across Europe and the growing gap between political elites and the citizens.

Today, far-right politicians not only fo-cus on their national matters and inter-

ests, but also want to influence suprana-tional, European politics – sometimes, by aiming an exit of the Eurozone or even European Union itself. Over the past years, Front National, Ukip and the Danish People’s party gained more sympathy, support and trust within their own national borders. But their methods

and strategies are often mirrored and have an impact elsewhere. Furthermore, online activism and connectivity facili-tate organisation and of course enable a constant exchange of information.

Extreme right-wing parties can no long-er be ignored or dismissed as temporary

phenomena. Therefore, we need to un-derstand, that leaving the (national) po-litical stage to them puts in danger rath-er European values, like human rights, democracy or constitutional legality. Awareness and a united European front is required – today more then ever.

Maria Salomé Fernandes

continued ... Extreme Europe

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meus 2015 newspaper no1

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