T H E C O R F U N I A N

This publication is an intellectual property of the “Ionian International Forum, Corfu 2012” organised by the European Youth Parliament.

Issue #3

CONTRIBUTORS

Wim van Doorn (NL; Editor)Konstantinos Kyranakis (GR; Editorial As.)Kostis Douligeris (GR)Emy Mylona (GR)Clara Bagüés Sampériz (ES)Annmarie Kiiskinen (FI)Jelena Petrovic (SR)Berkok Yüksel (TR)Célia Poncelin (FR)Izaura Mantsai (AL)Elena Louise King (UK)Panaghiotis Kalaïdhopoulos (GR)

“Some swim in the waves.Some just get wet.”

- Unknown Delegate

E D I T O R I A L

the last play.A large part of this newspaper has come together in a very special night in the Municipal Theater of Corfu. Extreme weather is keeping the boats from Corfu to Vido in port, which means that it is impossible for the session participants to go back to their accommodation. This might be the first time that extreme weather conditions have stranded an entire session.

As the participants are asleep in the theatre, the press room keeps running. Meetings are held, articles are being checked, and videos

are edited, but we have to make do with what is available. With half of our equipment and our footage on Vido, we can only do part of our work from here. Nevertheless, challenges like these force us to bring about the best in ourselves, and we hope that the final products of the CORFUNIAN live up to your expectations.

It was a pleasure reporting on you.

Wim Van Doorn, Editor / Konstantinos Kyranakis, Editorial Assistant

1,2,more or none?

O P I N I O N

by Panaghiotis Kalaïdhopoulos & Elena Louise King

From its foundation, French has been a cornerstone of EYP’s identity. However, the language is used less and less at sessions and its status is criticized by some members of the EYP community.

Where should we go with languages in EYP?Our organisation is turning 25 in October, and the use of French is as controversial as ever. Different groups strive for allowing different languages. Hopefully, nobody has so far asked for EYP to go mute. Here we present you with some rather interesting conclusions we drew from our short talks with some of the session participants.

According to the multis, we should keep French. EYP was founded there, and the ‘real-life’ EP has its seat in Strasburg and Brussels, two French-speaking cities.Additionally, the process of European integration asks, inter alia, also for mutual respect and common cultural development. Thus, theoretically, if the EU is in fact working in 23 official Languages, EYP could maybe even manage two (or even more…).

However, while an EYP-bilingual objective sounds great, we cannot claim it to

be unless we start fully supporting it. Just some points of debate, now and then, or a Resolution Booklet in French, don’t really meet the standards of such an objective.

When you reject something, you usually have to replace it with something better. So, yes, we are in favour of multilingualism, but it cannot properly work. What could instead be a proposal would be a new policy, in which every National Committee could use their own language

in domestic affairs and national sessions, while both English and French would be preserved as official and international languages within the EYP.

This way, there would be much more space, time and energy allocated to the improvement of the actual EYP-bilingual concept at the international level. More focus, better result. (Then, again, can we bear future sessions featuring almost only national officials?)

“multis”say

M U L T I L I N G U A L I S M

Besides being in favour of multilingualism itself, the Monos argue that French should not remain in the programme. Young people should have a chance to express and debate their own opinions, something which practically isn’t viable, if more than half of them cannot understand each other.

Also, in the current situation, French is more of a symbolic language, rather than a substantial EYP working language. It is just not widespread enough to justify its use.Removing French would be the easiest approach right now. We either opt for full and proper communication in one language –English, the ‘international’ one, or we stick to the past and let the future pass by. Besides (paraphrasing JFK), those who only look at the past and want to stick to the present, will most likely miss the future.

“monos”say

The board right above is by no means exclusive. We do not need you to form an opinion right away on an issue this controversial, but we rather ask you to think about it. Think of the question, after this(re)introduction to it.

However, it is not likely that the language situation will change any time soon. Still, we will be here, we will hear, think and discuss. Hopefully, those discussions will help inform our decision makers about what we should do with languages in EYP.

whatdo yousay?

Are you in favour of a multilingual or a monolingual EYP?

Expanding the EU with new members has become a controversial topic in recent years. The current situation presents us with a dilemma: should we continue with enlargement or not? If we decide in favour, the accession criteria should be monitored more strongly. However, the current crisis can be a good moment to hold off on enlargement, at least for the upcoming years.

There have been five waves of enlargement since the establishment of the EU, the last one of which took place in 2007 with the accession of Romania and Bulgaria. The Copenhagen criteria are the rules that define whether a country is eligible to join the European Union. They consist of political criteria, including democracy, rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities, as well as economic criteria. In previous accession negotiations these criteria were not always applied in full.

This has caused a lot of criticism, especially when the economic crisis started and problems with the newer Member States became obvious. There are

currently five candidate countries: Iceland, FYROM, Serbia, Montenegro and Turkey. With several of these five potentially joining the EU in the next few years, the question arises: is today’s EU ready for further enlargement? If the answer is yes, then a lot of effort must be put from both sides. The Copenhagen principles are, in theory, a good set of rules to judge whether a country is ready to join. However, in future negotiations they should be enforced consistently. An illustrative example of this would be the accession of Croatia, FYROM and Serbia. These countries have had a history of internal conflict that peaked in the 1990s with the collapse of Yugoslavia and the civil wars that followed. The criteria, in this case, would allow the EU to contribute to the stabilization of that region, because they create one system of laws. In this common system the states have, for example, no freedom anymore to violate rights of minorities and it becomes impossible for them to get into a violent conflict.

What if, on the other hand, the answer is no? A process of a

large expansion is bound to be strenuous and require a lot of time for proper integration to take place, while also taking up valuable resources and involving opportunity costs. With Europe currently in economic, social and political crisis, adding more countries to the table would probably make decision-making more complicated. Hence, the more countries become a Member State, the longer it will take to achieve stability. Therefore, it is necessary to wait with expansion until the current Member States are able to adjust to a larger EU.

So, let us ask ourselves: is it a Europe of “yes’s” and “no’s” that we are looking for? Do we embrace the diversity of dynamic expansion in the hope that integration will be achieved, or keep to ourselves until our problems are solved? Probably none of the two: Europe can walk the middle path, making decisions along the way, some wrong, some other right, but definitely not absolute. After all, as diversity is one of the priority goals EU has set, expansion remains a long term goal.

integration, enlargementor both? by Izaura Mantsai

A R T I C L E

A F C O

A R T I C L E

Under the pressure of austerity policies across Europe, Member States are imposing drastic cuts on their defense budgets. The fact is that these cuts also sharply limit Europe’s ability to undertake autonomous peacekeeping and stabilization operations in its own vicinity. It is true, of course, that most of Europe’s armed forces are both overstaffed and underperforming, their impact and ability to adapt burdened by outdated and outrageously expensive platforms. All in all, the central weakness of Europe’s fledgling Common Security and Defense Policy is blatantly obvious.

In the long run, the only way for the EU to “soften” the impact of current budget reductions is through partial integration of its Member States’ armed forces. Currently, there are no European structures to coordinate defense and procurement policy at the very time that they are most urgently needed. However, it goes too far to suggest the creation of a (fully integrated) ‘European Army’, which would entail a delegation of national

sovereignty to the EU on a scale that most Europeans today would still find unacceptable. Nevertheless, Europeans should look very seriously at pooling resources wherever that is feasible. Potential candidates include, but are not limited to, creating European military training centers and documents, common air defenses, air transport capabilities, military satellites, common emergency relief capabilities. Beyond these areas, Europeans ought to explore a differentiated approach to integration that reflects the differences in scale, historic alliances and regional security priorities.

At the same time, the EU needs to set up a process for identifying medium and long-term strategic risks and threats that might transform into a military crisis in the Mediterranean area and the Middle East. To make this happen, European intelligence agencies should increase their cooperation and possibly move towards creating a central organization.

by Kostis Douligeris

It’s time to make a choice

According to an old saying, Europe is an economic giant, yet a

military dwarf. The problem today is that the dwarf appears to be

shrinking ever more.

S E D E

Another important challenge would be to determine the appropriate policies that can be used to deal with conflict situations. There should be a balance between instruments of prevention (diplomacy, development aid, intelligence and policing), instruments of deterrence and intervention (hard power proper: troops, platforms and weapons). Considering each conflict is unique, the balance between these policies will be different.

Currently, the CSDP uses a standard approach for all conflict situations. However, a new

approach should be decided on for each conflict.

All in all, the Member States should make a choice. Either develop towards a European army and face threats with a common strategy, or continue working under the auspices of NATO and the UN. In any case, the EU’s capacity should be increased by creating a central military intelligence institution. Lastly, the EU should balance between the strategies of prevention and intervention, and create policies for specific conflict situations.

The EU needs to set up a process for identifying medium and long-term strategic risks and

threats that might transform into a military crisis in the Mediterranean area and the Middle East.

Adopting Greek Habits.

O P I N I O N

by Célia Poncelin & Annmarie Kiiskinen

Did you ever want to know why you always have to throw your toilet paper in a bin in Greece? Here you will not find the answer.

Entering into a new culture might turn out to be a little a bit of a shock. There are many factors that can cause this: the different climate, new people with their own habits, the food, and so on. Approximately one week ago 150 people arrived to a small island off the coast of Corfu and realized what they will have to deal with during the next 10 days. Reactions varied a lot among the group. Some of us adapted better than others, and some of us are still getting used to their new living environment.

One of the biggest issues is probably the toilet. They are like huge sinks in the floor with a hole in the middle. For many of us it is still a mystery how they work: the first time one goes there, the first thought popping into one’s mind is probably: “where the hell are the toilets?”. After figuring this out, there is a new challenge coming up. The thing is, most of us do not know how you are supposed to place yourself there. Do I have to stand, or sit, or what? Especially, what to do with the toilet paper? This brings us to a completely new subject: THE BIN. Many of us have had problems with understanding that you actually have to stuff the paper in the bin instead of the toilet. But the truth is: no one does it. After flushing the toilet we all realize that it is too

late. Then you turn around and see the bin – which happens to be full. Full of shit. The toilet has no locks, and always at that moment you realize that someone happens to rush to your toilet BOX. You will see that the other person caught you staring at the bin in your underwear, wondering how on earth people decided to throw toilet paper in there.

Another issue raising varying thoughts among people is the endless flow of wasps all over you. Finishing breakfast without unexpected (or actually, very expected) guests is impossible. As a matter of fact, wasps seem to be included in your every-day meal by swimming in your orange juice (or coffee for those of you who have a strong stomach). Thirdly, some of the officials have gotten to enjoy the magical Greek car drive around the town. Thing is: the streets in Greece are unbelievably narrow and cruising through them by car seems a mission impossible. Apparently, that is not the case with Greeks. 90 degree turns and humans and animals running across the streets are not a problem. It appears that Greek car drivers are extremely talented. In case one would put, for instance, a Scandinavian behind the wheel here, it would probably cause many unfortunate collides with innocent citizens and other terror around the city. However, Greeks seem to know what they are doing so let’s just leave it for them.

F U N N Y

Finally, we may need to stop the Greeks from putting water in everything. Coffee, juice, alcohol, they are all made in a ‘light’ version in this country, and our taste buds have trouble picking up the flavours.

Apart from that, everything is going well in your life. Our endless admiring of this country

and its culture has reached the point where we can find a couple of facts that are interesting or funny.

So, guys, let’s be serious: please throw your toilet papers in the bin, otherwise we will need to make nature our toilets.

the Ionian Forumin numbers

N U M B E R S

by Clara Bagüés Sampériz

20

147

106 flipcharts and 505 postits

77311250 paper sheets to print “the Corfunian”

mosquitobites in 8 days

REQUESTSRECEIVED FROM

DELEGATES, CHAIRS AND JOURNOS TO ORGANISERS

HOURS ON THE PHONE FOR EVERY ORGANISER DURING THE FORUM

17.522hours spent by the head organisers the last 2 years

T H E I O N I A N F O R U M

3h/nightfor every organiser to sleep

500 25349 pictures and 338 video fragmentstaken by the journos.

BOTTLES OF WATER:

8 BOFORSOF WIND MADE IT

IMPOSSIBLE FOR DELEGATESTO GO BACK TO VIDOS THNIGHT BEFORE THE G.A. THIS WAS THE HARDEST

MOMENT OF THE FORUM

A R T I C L E

The global economic crisis began in 2008. Here we are four years later in the summer of 2012. It has become obvious that things are worse rather than better and that there are neither easy nor national solutions. Therefore, tax havens should be forced to change their policies, taxes should become alignment in the EU, and corruption needs to be tackled.

First of all, tax havens have been a major problem that has, to an extent, brought us to where we are now. There are certain loopholes that allow such things to happen in Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and Andorra, for example. It is true that these tax havens are not illegal, but they are quite evidently immoral. This union we are living in is trying to be saved by the majority of the citizens, who are not wealthy enough for a company to manage their money and offer them no tax payments. This means governments are not getting the high tax percentages from the big fish, while they still use the facilities paid for by the tax money of the rest of the citizens. Basically, in order to avoid paying vast quantities of money to the governments in taxes, they put their money in tax havens. So, the wealthiest pay the least. The EU should use its diplomatic influence to get rid of these tax havens to be able to offer favourable conditions to companies.

Secondly, another measure that can theoretically work is the establishment of

international tax rates among Member States. We must put in place uniform international tax levels which reflect the needs of an ever more global economy. If in all Member States the rates are the same, especially for the wealthy, the amount of capital moving towards specific countries will decrease drastically.

If this measure is not put into place, money just goes wherever tax rates are lower. So, no matter whether you are a well paid architect in Spain or in Finland, your taxes will be the same. Therefore, this measure is also designed to avoid brain drains.

Lastly, intervention of national or international courts to reduce corruption within financial and government institutions is vital. To make that happen, the position of courts needs to be further strengthened and the range of cases for international tribunals should be expanded. We cannot allow either corruption or inequality in our banking and political arenas to go unpunished.

National economies are increasingly irrelevant as the global economy emerges. With this in mind, it is imperative that we tackle tax havens, brain drains and give birth to powerful courts that do not forgive the unforgivable. We must understand, this can only be possible without corrupt players.

PLAYING DIRTY

by Elena Louise King

E C O N

A R T I C L E

From cooking to heavy industries and from basic sanitation to fisheries, water is vital for all known forms of life, as well as an absolute necessity for a great number of human activities. Uncoincidentally, water has always been an important point on the agenda of worldwide policy-making. In the framework of the Millennium Development goals, target 7c is focused on ‘ensuring environmental sustainability’, and calls upon halving the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015.

When it comes to drinking water, this has already been achieved. However, when it comes to basic sanitation, e.g. toilets, a majority of citizens in the developing world are still without access. Policies should be introduced to further deal with this problem.

The most important way that access to basic sanitation can be improved is through direct investment in developing countries. The EU is the world’s largest aid donor in terms of the MDGs, providing more than half of all development aid, with the Commission alone accounting for 13% of total aid flows through programmes promoting the MDGs and supporting sectors crucial for development. Nonetheless, there are several reasons that its policies in the field of sanitation are effective right now.

Firstly, policy-making is made more complicated by the involvement of many stakeholders on different levels, ranging from several international bodies with similar competences, such as the World Health Organisation, the High Commissioner for Refugees and the UN Development

Programme, as well as EU Member States and the developing countries themselves. There surely is agreement on both the problem and its solution, but there is no coordinated effort to tackle sanitation issues. If projects are run through one central UN agency, this would allow programmes to be better coordinated and unnecessary bureaucratic structures to be removed.

Secondly, the concerns about a balanced EU budget are holding back support for sanitation projects. Here it is the national interest that is seen as the basic motivation of states when looking at solving development issues in the Third World. Member States are not willing to pay more than any other state, and expenditure on sanitation needs to be balanced with cuts in other fields.

Where does Europe stand on the way to a world with cleaner and fairer water?

by Panaghiotis Kalaïdhopoulos

thebreakfast

club

O P I N I O N

by Berkok Yüksel

“A good breakfast makes a good day” is a clear Turkish saying, emphasizing the importance of your first meal of the day. But what is a good breakfast? Is it a healthy one? Or does it involve any croissants, or hardcore bacon and eggs? Let us see what the European youth thinks of its breakfast.

Having a decent breakfast at an EYP session is perhaps an exaggerated luxury. However, it is crucial to have a satisfying and nutritious meal in the early dull hours of the long day: it boosts energy; you do not get hungry for a long time and you avoid the early morning exhaustion. But guess what? The definition of a ‘good breakfast’ varies from person to person, or, to be exact, from culture to culture.

To have a decent blood-sugar level throughout the day, experts suggest a low-fat and low-on-carbs breakfast. That means less bacon, less cheese, less nutella, less everything that tastes good. The study of

the press team shows that 50% percent of the European youth starts its day with a sugar-based breakfast, while 25% percent has a breakfast high on fat. Seeing the high percentage of youngsters on an unhealthy diet, one has to ask the question: why do they eat unhealthy?

After conducting a survey of the session, I witnessed that every culture had its own approach to the concept. While Greeks imply that they do not have a specific traditional breakfast, the survey shows that many prefer to have the bread-butter-honey trio, with milk. For instance Fannis (GR-TRAN) prefers: “milk, bread with nutella, marmalade and Corfiot butter”.

On the other hand the British rather fill their stomach with a cooked breakfast, composed of eggs, bacon, sausage and beans, enjoyed to the fullest with tea of course. However, when we take a look at Central Europe, the habit changes. Kaja and Sabrina from

Germany tell us they prioritise fruit during breakfast, accompanied by a cup of coffee.

Same goes for France, as the French youth solely consumes coffee and sweet pastry for breakfast, hence the famous croissant.

In the Northern and Scandinavian countries, coffee also forms am important part of the breakfast, along with fruit, yogurt or porridge. On the contrary, some Mediterranean countries prefer a salty breakfast instead of a sweet one. Spanish omelets are the proof of that. Especially in Turkey a breakfast is usually composed of four main ingredients: tomatoes or the occasional cucumbers, olives, feta cheese and simit (Turkish bagel). These are every now and then followed by butter and honey, jam or nutella. Of course the drink on the table is the boiling Turkish tea.

B R E A K F A S T

such asmall world

B A C K S T A G E S T O R I E S

by Annmarie Kiiskinen

On Saturday, only one hour before a picture needs to be taken of

the Map of Europe, an organizer calls Alexandros Politis, head

organizer of the session. There is a problem: taking a picture from

the roof will not work.

There is not much time left so Alex rushes to the cafeteria below the

balcony that organizers have pointed out to him as a possible option.

He asks if he can get into the stairway which would lead to the

specific apartment. He finds the apartment, knocks on the door and

an old lady tells him to wait until she opens the door.

Things turn out to be extremely surprising. After a brief introduction,

the lady realizes that she knows Alexandros’ grandfather, who used

to be a doctor, and saved her mother’s life a long time ago. The lady

was very touched by this. Afterwards, she of course allows Alex to

use the balcony and take a photo of the delegates.

Fifteen minutes into his “mission impossible”, Alex is standing on the

balcony of the apartment he was assigned to go to, brought

together with a lady who his family has a history with. Finally, the

lady gets an opportunity to give something back to his family.

It is a small world we live in, and amazing things happen in it.

A L E X P O L I T I S

O P I N I O N

On one side, there’s the possibility of change. On the other, a deep sense of pride. The Greek language could be considered as one of the most influential for many other languages. It was once a cradle for the up and coming languages, and that’s why, so many of them, carry a little part of Greek DNA within them. No wonder Greeks feel proud. Nontheless, society is changing fast and constantly and the human brain is designed to observe, process, understand and store information. This mean that the easier the information is to understand, the more likely we are to use it. Having said this, and bearing in mind the everlasting debate on a common alphabet, which path should the Greek one follow?

Smoother communication flow for better international understanding ( which would mean having the latin characters for the Greek alphabet) or the embrace of a traditional alphabet?

The first opinion we gathered was from an Albanian living in Greece. She thinks that Greek should stay the way it is because it’s “esthetically nicer” to use different alphabets. Her main argument is that it enriches culture and makes out different ways to understand the world and different ways to approach it. Basically she takes the famous concept of only being able to form ideas and points of view through language. Therefore, with different alphabets, different ways of percieving what goes around us arrise.

Nikolaos Manetas-Stavrakakis stated that in case of erradication of the greek alphabet, a piece of history would be lost with it. When we introduced the subject of learning abilities by asking Anna Theodoropoulou (LIBE II) the feedback we received was most commonly spread

all around our interviewees. Yes, it doesn’t make things easier but then again, Greeks are all tought the latin alphabet from a very early age. So, ultimately, they are just provided with more information without it negatively affecting their learning abilities or capacity to understand the outseide world.

Their opinion has nothing to do with our second interviewee. Konstantninos Kyranakis thinks that his language should be written in both the greek alphabet and the latin one, so it would be easier for people to learn it and therefore the language, the culture and the history of Greece would be more widely spread. He thinks that learning languages which use the latin alphabet is even easier for Greek people than for the rest, as the Greek alphabet has been very meaningful in history and there are lots of languages that come from Greek with very similar sounds.

To summarise his ideas in a munch simpler way, he basically thinks that Greek should have a latin alphabet in order for it to be easier to understand and therefore, reaching international levels much easier. However, this doesn’t imply changing it for the Greek one, simply having two alphabets co-existing for one same language, preserving tradition, cultural identity and a nations individuality while expanding its boarders, as this last one, for him, is crucial.

Most greeks have chosen to follow the path of pride. However, it is clear that opinions vary from one individual to another. There is a confrontation between the idea of preserving what has always been there and forms part of a nations history and the desire to ease the expansion of its culture.

a Greek-Latin alphabet? by Clara Bagüés Sampériz

M U L T I L I N G U A L I S M

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v-z

M O M E N T S

M O M E N T S

T H E I O N I A N F O R U M

Q U I Z

ALELEBEACH

BEESBOAT

CALVINCAMPCHAIR

CORFUDISCUSSION

FIELDFRIENDS

FUNHEADQUARTERS

HOTIONIAN

LOSTMOSQUITOS

MULTILINGUALISMNEWSPAPER

OLYMPICSPARTY

RESOLUTIONSOUVLAKI

SUNSWEATY

TREASUREVIDO

FINDTHE

WORDS

G A M E S

Where is Calvin?Try to Spot Calvin on these 2 photos.

E Y P O L Y M P I C S

The EYP Olympics were cancelled due to a terrorist

attack and the medal count

table will not be displayed after

continuous threats for a

second attack to athletes and

journalists.

E Y P O L Y M P I C S

medal table page

corfu2012.com