Turku 2015 - On Topics by lauresteinville

PRE-SESSION ISSUE

ON TOPICS

TURKU 2015 - 21st NATIONAL SESSION OF EYP FINLAND

CON TENTS

BROUGHT TO YOU BY : ALASTAIR PAYNE (UK) LAURE STEINVILLE (FR) LEO SJOBERG (SE) SARA KALKKU (FI) LAURYNAS KETURAKIS (LT) SASKIA KIISKI (FI) RASMUS KRIEST (DE) KATLIN KRUUSE (EE) LAURI LAHTINEN (FI) ELINA MAKELA (FI) TRIIN NAUDI (EE) PHILIPPA RYTKONEN (FI) KIMBERLY VAN DER LAAN (NL)

A LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

AFET

8 AFCO 10 EMPL II 11 12

ENVI ECON

14 EMPL I 16 ITRE 17 FEMM 18 CULT 20 REGI

DIS CLAIMER ANY VIEWS OR OPINIONS PRESENTED IN THIS PAPER ARE SOLELY THOSE OF THE AUTHORS AND DO NOT REPRESENT THOSE OF THE EUROPEAN YOUTH PARLIAMENT FINLAND, TURKU 2015 OR ITS PATRONS

A LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

expect you’ve already had some contact with your Chair while you were working on your preparation for your committee topic. We certainly hope so, at least. And you’ve undoubtedly crossed paths with someone from the tireless organising team, making sure you arrive in Turku in one piece and have everything you need. But this may very well be your first contact with the Media Team and your Committee Journalist. As your Chair will guide you through academic debates and the Organisers will attend to you from cradle to cafétierre, so your Journalist will record, report, document, detail, photograph, film, and reflect your whole experience at the session, collaboratively creating a body of work with you (yes, you in particular) at the centre. But we also aim to provide some new perspectives of our own : and that’s what you’re reading right now. The first magazine of Turku 2015, ON TOPICS, is full of information about... you guessed it, the session topics.

The

articles in this magazine are designed to give you an introduction to the reality of the issues we will be debating. We hope to provide you with a fresh perspective on your own topic, and a shortcut to understanding everything else. It’s very easy, amidst the academic preparation, to view your topic as something unreal; something that exists only in news reports, something to be debated on a theoretical level - but so disconnected from our own lives that we can’t allow ourselves to feel anything, to become as passionate and incensed and enraged as we ought to, if we could really see the problems facing society as things we have a personal responsibility towards. But if there’s one thing we have learnt from doing EYP (and remember, everyone here was a delegate just like you just a few years or even months ago), it’s that if people like us don’t think of solutions to these problems, nobody else will. So your Media Team has produced for you a magazine full of ideas, facts and opinions that we hope you’ll find useful and interesting; and that will spark your imagination, and light a fire under your debates in Turku.

On behalf of your Media Team, your humble servants, Alastair & Laure

WINTER WONDERLAND - OR A HOT SPOT?

Map: Trade Routes in the Arctic

Five out of the eight Member States

of the Arctic council, namely Canada, Denmark, USA, Iceland, and Norway, are NATO members, and further two, Finland and Sweden have close ties with NATO. This leaves Russia somewhat seemingly isolated, as its recent activity in Ukraine has soured its relations with the West. A notable fact is that Norway, not a member state of EU although a member of the EEA area, adopted economic sanctions against Russia along with the EU

AFET BY LAURI LAHTINEN

However, despite tensions a

conflict does not seem to happen in the very near future. Even rival oil companies are collaborating due to the Arctic's harsh climate and uncharted territory. It has in fact been claimed that the Arctic has remained untouched for this long due to the harsh conditions, rather than strong international legislation and treaties.

Currently usable trade routes

in the Arctic are a cause of some tension, potentially leading to unpredictability harmful for trade. Russia considers the Northern Sea Route (NSR) to be its territory, and likewise Canada has claimed that the waters of the Northwest Passage (NWP) belongs to it, while many others states consider the NWP an international trade route and therefore also international territory.

In spite of this, Admiral James Stavridis,

NATO's supreme allied commander in Europe, has stated: "For now, the disputes in the north have been dealt with peacefully, but climate change could alter the equilibrium over the coming years in the race of temptation for exploitation of more readily accessible natural resources."

Indeed

, major changes in the Arctic would affect the whole world. It is highly important to stress that the Arctic is not an isolated remote area that has no effect on, say, equatorial countries. Even states as geographically distant from the Arctic as Egypt are already linked to development in the area, as the NSR would directly compete with the channel of Suez. Similarly a look at the observer states in the Arctic Council proves the interests of such states.

STILL A BETTER LOVE STORY THAN TWILIGHT RUSSIA’S RELATIONSHIP WITH THE FAR RIGHT As a result of May 2014 elections fringe parties now hold a considerable amount of mandates in the European Parliament. These movements are well known for their quite pro-Putin stance during recent events. Love at first sight or a relationship with a long history? In fact, Kremlin has been manipulating European extreme movements to achieve its goals for almost a century.

TWENTY FIVE PER CENT

ay 2014 elections resulted in quarter of 751 MEPs coming from eurosceptic or even far-right parties. “In terms of phrases you don’t want to hear, phrase ‘the surge of far-right parties in Europe’ is up there with ‘it’s malignant’ and ‘we’re losing cabin pressure” – John Oliver a British-American comedian describes the outcome alluding to the events of the 20th century. How come the European continent is once again turning to the extreme right, even after the terrible lessons of the previous age?

DAMSEL IN DISTRESS

he sudden turn to fringe parties shows that EU population has lost trust in its institutions. Various issues of 2009-2012 (namely the economic crisis) have caused a widespread dissatisfaction of the EU. It is no surprise then why parties like UKIP, Front National or even Jobbik that denounce single currency and propose stricter regulations on immigration, protectionist economic policy and nationalised decision-making became popular. No matter how radical or moderate they are, they offer people security on social and economic level making their ideals attractive.

THE QUESTION IS: CAN THESE PARTIES OFFER SECURITY AND STABILITY IN EUROPE?

TALKING LOUD

Russia’s

campaign in Ukraine has caused great trouble for the EU. A destabilisation of European order – as many western experts named the Putin’s venture. Crimean occupation, downing of MH17 and various violations of international law has naturally evoked a condemning reaction from Russia’s western neighbours. However, not every political movement has denounced Russia’s action.

Marine Le Pen has admitted that her

far-right Front National accepted money from a Russian bank, amid growing evidence that the Kremlin is backing anti-European parties across the continent. The leader of Front National said that her party had received a loan of €9 million in September from the Russian-owned First Czech-Russian Bank, however, Mediapart, a Paris-based online investigative journal, claims that the loan could actually reach €40 million. Russian loans have also been extended to Greece’s Golden Dawn, Belgium’s Vlaams Belang, Italy’s Lega Nord, Hungary’s Jobbik and the Freedom Party of Austria. All of these parties except Golden Dawn were invited to observe Crimea’s vote on joining Russia and all offered their support for the annexation of the south-eastern Ukrainian region.

Deeds

as well as words prove that European fringe parties in the European Parliament lobby for Russia’s interests. A Lithuanian MEP Gabrielius Landsbergis (EPP) has noted Le Pen’s and Farage’s activities in EP being very pro-Russian.

AFCO

According

to Mr Landsbergis, it seems that eurosceptics have been trying to use parliamentary procedures to block or sabotage EU treaties that aim to either support Ukraine or strengthen Euro-Atlantic ties. It is clear that many European far-right parties foster pro-Russian attitude. Obviously, one of the reasons is that Putin and the European far-right share the same stance on certain issues: traditionalism, hatred for LGBT communities, nationalistic sentiments and even revisionist attitudes. However, other reasons are far more prosaic. and the Freedom Party of Austria. All of these parties except Golden Dawn were invited to observe Crimea’s vote on joining Russia and all offered their support for the annexation of the south-eastern Ukrainian region.

NO STRINGS ATTACHED?

Blaming the EU (or the United States)

for the crisis in Ukraine and praising Putin for his supposedly good rule on Russia has somehow become a popular trend amongst far-right and eurosceptic parties. Golden Dawn, a radical and openly neo-Nazi movement in Greece has accused western powers for ‘arranging a coup in Ukraine’. “I admire ‘cool head’ Putin’s resistance to West’s new Cold War” – Marine Le Pen, the charismatic leader of the major French nationalist party Front National, in an interview for Euronews. ’EU has blood on its hands over Ukraine’ – famous, although more moderate, eurosceptic and the leader of UKIP (UK Independence Party), Nigel Farage has also expressed his criticism for EU and admiration for Putin.

BY LAURYNAS KETURAKIS

BEST FRIENDS FOREVER

he Kremlin’s close relation with the European radicals is everything but a new phenomenon. In March 1919 leading members of the Communist Party in Russia founded the Communist International (later known as Comintern). The organisation comprised communist parties and groups from many countries such as Germany, France, Britain, Finland, Ukraine and even the USA. The Comintern was later (in 1947) succeeded by Cominform, which was disbanded in 1956, three years after Stalin’s death, under Khrushchev’s policy of ‘De-Stalinization’. However, the links between Soviet Union and several communist parties - especially those in France and Italy - remained throughout the Cold War until the USSR imploded in 1991.

‘HERITAGE’

fter Yeltsin’s resignation Moscow has been intending not only to achieve formal recognition, but also to adapt tactics used by its predecessor. As well as inheriting the hybrid warfare strategy used by Soviet Union in the Cold War, Russia is once again turning to fringe movements in Europe to assert its influence over EU decision-making. The good news is that Europe has so far managed to outlive the rises of extreme parties twice, but is qa hat trick pushing our luck?

Photo: Marine Le Pen and speaker of Russian parliament’s lower house Sergei Naryshkin

EMPL II

THE FREE WORKFORCE I

nternships aren’t exactly a new idea. In fact they have been around since at least the beginning of the 20th century, when the University of Cincinnati's Cooperative Education program introduced “off-campus work experience” programs. An earlier report has also been found, dating back to 1865, belonging to the Boston hospital. This old practice, however, is now at the centre of a serious debate.

BY KÄTLIN KRUUSE

This is a typical problem. As a shocking

example of mistreatment, an electronics company called Foxconn in China employs thousands of “interns” each year. There have been cases of suicides, because the company is violating labour policies by making them do night shifts and work overtime. By the way, Foxconn probably manufactured your Kindles and iPhones, with Apple being one of their largest clients.

The most contentious form is the unpaid

Although

The most contentious form is the unpaid

any interns cannot support themselves with a low salary, limiting the labour market to white-collar students, who can live off their parents' money. On the positive side, quite a few universities have already established strong support for their students. Many academic institutions now have an “internship office” that is looking for opportunities for their students for summer or holidays. Another helpful fact is that through traineeships, students can get academic credit. This expands their experience explicitly during undergradute degrees, not after.

internship, where university students are essentially used as free labour by employers, and often only asked to perform menial and meaningless work which provides no useful experience in the profession. Taking interns is especially tempting because pensions, health care and maternity leave have made employees more costly. Since students often do not have another option for learning practical skills in their studies or negotiation experience, they agree on slaving away in terrible conditions. This is a typical problem. As a shocking example of mistreatment, an electronics company called Foxconn in China employs thousands of “interns” each year. There have been cases of suicides, because the company is violating labour policies by making them do night shifts and work overtime. By the way, Foxconn probably manufactured your Kindles and iPhones, with Apple being one of their largest clients.

some employers do pay their interns, the salary is often far below the living wage, making it difficult for students to sustain themselves whilst working as interns. The salary is not enough to meet the basic needs for life such as housing, food and utilities. University students still take the job. Why? Because having an internship experience on one's CV increases employment opportunities considerably. Without internship experience, you will not be offered a job in many fields.

t can still be argued that these internships lack usefulness and are largely taken for a more impressive résumé. Interns are not trustworthy and are only good for shadowing the real employees with a coffee cup. We should now ask ourselves, what is the point of a traineeship in the first place? How can students raise their concerns without simply being overlooked for employment?

COMPETITIVE

& SUSTAINABLE GROWTH

ENVI BY ELINA MAKELA

AUSTERITY EUROPE’S DIRTY WORD “Shush. That’s rude!” “You shouldn’t say that word!” “Watch out what you let out of your mouth!”

Cursing

is a bad habit, of which people get reproached by their parents. As Europe is desperately trying to find ways out of the current recession, the past policy, austerity has been labeled almost as negatively as a swear word.

So what

do we talk about when we discuss austerity? Dictionaries link it to strictness, sternness and severity, which comes very close to how people who have lost their jobs or a lion’s share of their salary due to austerity, see it. In practice, austerity measures are spending cuts, tax rises, aiming at balancing government budgets. They are cuts e.g. in public spending, government employment, pensions or salaries. That sounds horrible and unforgivably wrong. Who would support a rundown of child benefits, health care, education, elderly care or our infrastructure? That destroys what the past generations have been working so hard for! Our European standard of living, where are you taking it?

However, there is a reason for this po-

licy, despite its languishing consequences. The other monster is called budget deficit or national debt, the economic state of a government where expenditures exceed revenue, where we spend more than we earn. This leads to borrowing in a massive scale, unimaginably big debts and in the worst case, dependency on the creditor. In light of this, austerity doesn’t sound that bad. But as we have seen, there is a call for other solutions. Unemployment, pessimistic business climate and shrinking economies are not very welcome side effects.

LET IT GROW, LET IT GROW, LET IT GROW

So, is there anything else in our

tool-box to solve this miserable problem, the increasing national deficits? One option would be raising economic activity, making consumers consume and investors invest again. That means the increase of demand and supply. That means economic growth. Growth, as we know, is not unambiguously good and healthy thing (e.g. for environmental reasons). That is, if one supports growth, one should make it sustainable and stable. Stability also creates a mood of confidence, which in turn stimulates investments.

STILL, THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO PROMOTE ECONOMIC GROWTH • Government incentives for private companies to invest in new technologies e.g. grants, cheap loans and tax reliefs encourage investments and economic activity. • Investments in human capital meaning more resources allocated to education leads to smarter and more skillful workforce which again increases productivity and efficiency. • Deregulation and removal of unnecessary bureaucracy are ways to welcome foreign and transcontinental investments to the home markets. • In order to encourage individuals to try entrepreneurship and small businesses to grow, incentives from the governments’ side are needed. • Tax and benefit system reforms can increase labour activity and encourage people to work more. • Competitiveness, meaning the ability to compete with price, quality and availability of products in comparison with others, can be enhanced by deregulating markets and reducing barriers for different businesses to enter the markets. • Infrastructure projects lower costs on transport in the long run and create jobs. • Encouraging creation of new markets such as that on waste or clean technologies and welcoming highly educated immigrants make economies grow.

ECON BY SARA KALKKU IS IT THE END?

We are on the edge of either sol-

ving or deepening the crisis Europe is facing. The 1930’s must never happen again. People need high quality education and stable jobs, a stake in society to be immune to hate for economic reasons; for ‘jobs that were taken from us’. We can even make extremism less appealing if we provide a chance for everyone to have their dignity and make their living, if we are able to show that they are needed and essential. If we are careless with our finances, we ignore the fact that economic independency protects us from political dependency. Maybe there still is and will be a fair role for austerity, too. Or let’s call it rationality. “The end of rationality” - how would that sound?

#LET’S #BORROW #SPEND #CRAZYFUN #WANT-IT-ALL

What has the EU planned to do

then? Are their plans waterproof? New funds aim at bringing more liquidity to the European economies to make them flourish and grow again. More money means more lending, but wasn’t it the headless borrowing and carelessness that made the markets nervous, interest rates jump and national economies wobble? Yes, we need economic activity but we also need stability and careful budget management. Creative ideas, innovations and open atmosphere keep the mood good and things going. They also feed our need to appear advanced and modern. It is reflected among the high-tech addicts who always have the latest version of me-phones and me-metablets and me-me-me-mine-mine-minelaptops. Smaller salaries and benefits or higher taxes do not match with this world.

WHEN THE MOST EDUCATED GENERATION IN HISTORY

FACES BARRIERS 40

% of Europeans aged 15-24 indicate an interest in self-employment, however only 4% of them are self-employed. There are many interlinked reasons for why many youths are not capable of starting their own enterprises. Indeed, various barriers represent a consequent part of the problem of young entrepreneurs not being able to get self-employed and starting-up their own business. Despite these barriers, young entrepreneursâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; businesses have growth rates of nearly 210% for enterprises that survive for more than three years. This figure is nearly the double in comparison to the same field of study in enterprises founded by adults.

Takinajuuri

, a local bakery in Turku faced some of these difficulties when its owners were about to start up their business. The bakery was founded in September 2014, by 25-year old Michaela Salminen who believed in the concept of baking bread with sourdough and ecological ingredients. Despite the unique concept banks were not allowing the young entrepreneur to obtain a bank loan due to difficulties in predicting the turnover for the upcoming year. Luckily the young entrepreneur was able to get a bank loan later when she showed the positive business results of her bakery, therefore making Mrs Salminen able to invest in a better oven for her bread and pastries. The bakery has received a lot of customers despite very little marketing and has certainly found a place in Turkuâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bakery business. This is yet an example amongst many others and a piece of evidence of what youths are capable of when staring their own enterprises.

s the Takinajuuri bakery example shows, starting-up an enterprise requires financial capital. Rare are the young people who possess enough savings that would make it possible to start-up their business without debt finance. Unfortunately, most banks do not easily provide debt finance to young entrepreneurs in spite of brilliant business concepts. Photo: Takinajuuri bakery, Turku

EMPL I

oreover, it happens often that youths lack the required experience in finance: their inability to make calculations on turnover and revenue for upcoming years is for instance one of the causes invoked by banks when it comes to refuse loans to young entrepreneurs.

urthermore, one of the main barriers hindering young entrepreneurs is the educational barrier. Despite the fact that today’s European youths are seen as the most educated generation in history, most education programmes prepare them for solely paid-employment. the basics of entrepreneurship are rarely taught in upper secondary schools and even less in lower secondary schools across Europe. The European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs (YES) is one of Europe’s largest associations of young entrepreneurs. YES is active in most European Member States and one of their mission statements involves ensuring that education systems promote, encourage and support entrepreneurship at all levels as appropriate. In doing so, they arrange different education programmes to entail entrepreneurship studies for children and youths at all ages.

he lack of education in entrepreneurship also comes with the lack of awareness for business networks and financial aid for young entrepreneurs. In order to tackle this issue, the European Union is currently funding many different sorts of programmes aimed at young entrepreneurs. Amongst them the most ambitious is the Erasmus European exchange program, which allow youths to exchange knowledge and experience about start-ups and entrepreneurship. Furthermore, the European Commission recently launched Start-Up Europe, a €850 million programme aiming at funding opportunities and projects for start-ups and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises.

BY PHILIPPA RYTKONEN

hese different barriers affect young entrepreneurs in different ways all across Europe. Youths categorised as NEETS (Not in Education, Employment or Training) are more vulnerable and at a high risk of facing these. Furthermore, the amount of NEETs has increased for the past years. Nowadays, NEETs constitute one in eight of young adults across the Organisation for Economic Cooperaton and Development (OECD). Estimates suggests that if 10% of NEETs were be integrated in the European labour market, this would save EU taxpayers €10 billion per year! In addition, one’s country of residence also affects the extent of the barriers due to legislation, taxation and funding opportunities, which vary in all Member States. Despite the fact that the extent to which these barriers affect youths differ at a regional level, they still affect us all, the youth of Europe, in some way regardless of our birthplace.

s there has been seen, youths have many brilliant ideas and motivation for running their own businesses but unfortunately these barriers hinder us, the young generation of Europe. Entailing entrepreneurship studies in lower- and upper secondary education is an essential step towards taking down these barriers. When youths learn about starting-up an enterprise, the awareness of how to apply for different EU projects and financial aid increases in the same time. When Europe has a generation of youths that h ave skills in setting-up their own enterprises and predicting business turnovers for upcoming years, banks can more likely give loans to young entrepreneurs in order for them to be able to run their businesses. When we reach these steps the most educated generation in history can finally reach up to their

FULL POTENTIAL

THE 2009 GAS CRISIS & RUSSIA’S ENERGY DOMINANCE

ITRE BY TRIIN NAUDI

STEREOTYPES & MISOGYNY IN MODERN MEDIA ‘‘I

keep it 300, like the Romans / 300 bitches, where’s the Trojans?” the U.S. based songwriter Kanye West is rapping in the song “Black Skinhead” from his sixth album “Yeezus” which was released worldwide in 2013. While the song received a great amount of critical reception and was mostly praised for its punk-rap style and critique of the modern, but still racist, American society: Rolling Stone, one of the worldwide most important magazines about pop-culture, named it the third best song of 2013 saying, “Next time someone says America is post-race, play 'em this, and watch their head explode.” But while this might be true, the already quoted lines show not only a great amount of sexism but also the objectification of women.

women are objects in his music and

are being shown and used that way – this is how Kanye West’s music can clearly being seen as. Another example is the music video of his 2010 song “Monster” which also features some of last century’s most celebrated musicians such as Jay-Z, Rick Ross or Nicki Minaj: The video mainly uses the stereotype of sexy dead women. Throughout the video a series of lifeless, mutilated and barely clothed white women with perfectly applied make-up and high heels are being shown, hanging from nooses or draped across sofas. The black women on the other are not dead but rather shown as evil and cannibalizing demons which are almost acting animalistic. Another rather famous artist of this century, the French-based David Guetta, wrote the song “Where Them Girls At”, released in 2011, in which the rapper Tramar Dillard, better known by his stage name Flo Rida says: “So many girls here, where do I begin? / I seen this one, I’m bout to go in.”

FEMM BY RASMUS KRIEST

Women as a sexual objects of lust

to the heterosexual man is not only present in many of last and this century’s songs but also in film: Be it a Megan Fox in Michael Bay’s “Transformers” who is being shown in a hot pants and tight shirts shirt in a slow motion shot against the sun, a Cameron Diaz in Ridley Scott’s “The Counselor” who rubs her genitals at the front window of a sports car or every women in every James Bond movie since 1962. Heck, the latter are even known as “Bond girls” worldwide. Statistics by the New York Film Academy show that women are wearing sexually revealing clothes or are being partially naked up to three times more than men in the “Top 500” films from 2007 to 2012 .

But whose fault is it that Kanye West

and David Guetta write songs about the woman as sex object, whose fault is it that Daniel Craig cannot be on his own, without a girl, in next year’s “Spectre”? While it might look like it is carelessness about women by the artists and actors, it is not. Every afore mentioned example is also one of good sales figures: Kanye West’s “Yeezus” sold 327,000 copies in the first week in the U.S. only and was certified Platinum for shipments of over 1,000,000 copies in January 2014, only six months after its release ; the latest installment of the Transformers series, “Transformers: Age of Extinction” was a massive box office success grossing over $1.087 billion worldwide . Sex sells – consumers like oversexualized women, stereotypes and misogyny.

SCHOOL’S OUT FOREVER

The very word, “school”, is derived from the Greek word “σχοσχολή’’, any guesses on what that means? Education, learning, studying, perhaps? Actually, it means – wait for it – “free time.” What?

CULT

Back in their day, even the elite’s offs-

pring spent most of their time working, helping their parents with a job that they would probably take over in the future. The system of values that Ancient Greek society was founded on found self-improvement to be noble and beautiful, so free time wasn’t spent on trivial activities as ours is nowadays, but instead was spent taking private lessons. It was seen as a great privilege and the teachers, whose function more resembled that of a mentor, were highly respected in society and hadn’t gone through a low-level educational program for teachers, but were instructed by respected elders of the community and were very wise.

What

a contrast to modern-day education! In the early modern period of our western society, educating children became more widespread, only expanding over the centuries and eventually leading to compulsory education. “School” was turned into a mass-student-producing machine. Ever since, students were not taught think outside the box, to improvise and to shape new opinions, but to cram for exams and study facts shortly before a test, just to forget them a few days later. An attitude that is most commonly seen in Asian countries, China and South Korea for example. Both of which the economies do thrive on innovation and mechanical inventions, for their university graduates know a lot about maths and engineering, but a substantial part of their skills are on the verge of being taken over by computers and machines. It is those countries that score the highest on the PISA test that this resolution is about. A considerable amount of skills that are of utmost importance in our modern society are simply not tested: things like cross-cultural competency or foreign language skills.

That being said, the PISA-test results

are still alarming, with a huge discrepancy between member states’ results. Mediterranean countries are consistently performing significantly worse in PISA than their Northern European siblings, which include countries like Finland, who are genuinely giving top-scorers like China a run for their money.

BY KIMBERLY VAN DER LAAN

Yet they do not accomplish this by

forcing their students to study endlessly and completely neglect their social lives and health, but by using the exact same method that teaching started with: small groups of pupils are taught by a highly educated teacher. Rather than spending unnecessary sums of money on digital reforms within schools (many European member states have been experimenting with smart boards and iPads for students), teachers are paid substantially higher wages and have the possibility to attend free teacher’s-workshops to keep them learning new educational methods and ways to motivate children. Now one could argue that Southern European countries don’t have the money to spend on that education.

The

Finnish government then decided that public education was its best shot at economic recovery. The national curriculum was distilled into broad guidelines, not prescriptions. Sorting children into ability-levels was banned, children were to be taught together with specialised teachers available so no one would fall behind. The last big innovation that was implemented, was a mandatory fifth-year master’s degree for teachers and practice at one of eight state universities—at state expense. Applications for those bachelor’s and master’s-degrees started flooding in. Not because of the high wages, but because teachers had finally regained the social respect that they enjoyed so many centuries ago.

The moral of that story and what this

country has proven us, is that any education system can be brought up to an unimaginably high level within only a few decades. All it takes is dedication by the society, the will to change, and some serious commitment to the cause by the government.

SHIVERING IN THE ICE OR BUILDING ON OPPORTUNITY? The current financial crisis raging in Europe has placed

increasing pressure on the decision making of how exactly the EU funds should be allocated. The pressure to strengthen the economy of the Member States is ever increasing. Getting results is an urgent need and the means of doing so seem to come second. The pressure to overcome the economic crisis is building its hopes on the areas acting as the primary motors of growth, leaving the periphery areas lagging behind. The unfortunate fact is that centralized population is easier to access and to take care for. On a large scale the scarce population in the periphery area of a country cause difficulties. Would it not be easier if all people lived in huge communities?

From the point of view of an individual, the opportuni-

ties to work and study in the areas located in the periphery are limited. However all people should have the freedom to choose to live where they wish and have the sufficient tools and opportunities to do so. As an example of a minor population in a periphery area we can use the Sami people in Lapland. Leading a traditional life in the cold winter is no easy task but the increasing remoteness due to the centralization of services, causes obstacles. Their traditional and vibrant culture is diminishing in the feet of large-scale centralisation of the modern world.

et me introduce the Northern Periphery Programme. The purpose of the programme is to help peripheral areas on the northern margins in Europe to develop their social, environmental and economic potential. The programme during the years 2007-2013 included Finland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom and Sweden, and the non-Member States Faroe Islands, Greenland, Iceland and Norway. The areas included in the programme all share the features of remoteness, harsh climate conditions and sparseness of population. The projects led by the programme encourage innovation and competitiveness in remote areas and promote sustainable development of natural and community resources. The programme has entailed various projects. One of them was the “NoCry”, targeted at youth that provided better understanding on the business potential that lies in creative industry. Another example comes from “NPPHunt”, a project supporting the development of hunting tourism in the peripheral areas of Northern Europe.

Photo: Finnish countryside nearby Kuopio

REGI BY SASKIA KIISKI

In 2007-2013 the programme al-

located €35.115 million to the Member States in the programme. The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), one of the two structural funds of the European Union, is used to fund the programme in the included Member States. In total the budget of the ERDF for the period of 20142020 is €185.374 billion. The location of these funds is vital. The theme of development led by this programme leads an example on productive economic support. The programme aims not to only help periphery areas to survive in the shadows of big cities but to develop these areas to flourish on a smaller scale. Supporting entrepreneurship and innovation is vital in order to develop these regions to be self-sufficient. The opportunities laying in the periphery of Europe cannot be forgotten. Ignoring these opportunities would be a massive loss to not only the population of these areas, but to a more innovative economy.

Partners of Turku 2015 21st National Session of EYP Finland

Ibernavel European Youth Parliament Finland - EYP - Finland ry Uudenmaankatu 15 A 5, 00120 Helsinki www.eypfinland.org eyp@eypfinland.org