Journey Topic Analyses
TRAN
Railways
Single Network? WORDS & PHOTO CHRISTOPHER NĂ–LTE
N
owadays, trains are one of the greenest means of travel on the market. However, trains are rather seen as an alternative for people who dislike cars rather than a serious mean of transportation. Especially for long distance travel, people prefer other means of conveyance. This is largely based on price as well as the lack of multi-national routes. Potentially, the railway connections within Europe could be much better. There are largely three solutions, which could potentially make railway transport the most attractive way to travel from A to B. Solutions should aim at creating a standardized, more competitive and better managed sector. Firstly it is largely about im-
proving the exchange of data and safety of national networks in order to archive that all trains are allowed to move through and across Europe without any technical, regulatory or operational constraints. Currently, trains have to move through many different signalling zones. One EU-wide standard would not only be simpler, but also a lot cheaper. Secondly, the railway operators should be separated from the network managers. Airports are not managed by airlines; streets are not maintained by carrying business, so why should it be different for rails? To open the market would allow the costumer to choose between wider choices of services, which would create lower prices and more punctuality.
It would also make for more satisfied users and therefore a bigger demand. Lastly, investing in projects such as Rail Baltica is currently not beneficial and cannot be considered a solution to the problem. The consumers should be first convinced by the simplicity and efficiency of the system rather than promoting a new route which is again only desultory connected to the rest of Europe. To conclude, it would only need a few reforms to transform the labyrinth of national services into a single European railway network and thus creating the railway network of the future. The developing of rail infrastructure cannot be considered a key priority before no single European railway network is created.
Inclusion
CULT
“Diversity is
the art of thinking independently together” WORDS & PHOTO ELINA IEVINA
I
n 2012 there was a referendum about making Russian the official language of Latvia. While the majority of the population voted against Russian being the official language of Latvia, in the region of Latgale many voters supported the motion. This year, there have been attempts to remove Russian language classes in Latvian schools. There was also a temporary suspension of broadcasting handed out to Russian television channel “Rossija-RTR” based on suspicions of usage for propaganda purposes.
In my own opinion, we shouldn’t fully eliminate Russian language in these aspects of society. To do this would only worsen relations with our Eastern neighbour further and cause more problems than solutions. The European Union’s job is to promote cultural diversity between countries, but that doesn’t mean that we need to cut off minority languages in our countries. One such case in point is Swedish language in Finland. Swedish is one of the national languages in Finland, equal to Finnish in the majority of legislation. Therefore, if Latvians are finding problems with
– Malcolm Forbes
Russian language in society, maybe they can look at Finland as an example. We need to accept that there are a great number of minorities and that there is no such country without minorities. However, we should not allow them to separate or disrespect our country, culture or traditions. We need to come up with solution that is good for every side. Moreover, this topic is problematic in terms of standpoint. One must make sure they suggest plenty of options solutions on how to deal with this situation and how to respect each other’s language.
DROI
Love
Lawfully Diverse WORDS & PHOTO KÄTLIN KRUUSE
T
he EU Strategic Framework and Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy, adopted in June 2012 states: „The European Union is founded on a shared determination to promote peace and stability and to build a world founded on respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law.“ Understanding the significance of this statement is especially crucial now that we have reached a point in our society where we finally dare to celebrate the diversity of being humans. The psychology behind intolerance is often fear of the unknown. The reality, however, is that LGBT persons have been our co-workers, our friends and our family for almost
as long as homo sapiens has walked on this earth. Furthermore, a direct example of understanding diversity of sexuality stares us right in our faces. Or more specifically, it exists in the animal kingdom – around 1,500 species besides humans engage in nonreproductive sex. So is it really outrageous or strange that so do we? The present situation calls for the rethinking of EU legislation accordingly as recent events in the LGBT’s rights in member states such as Estonia or Finland have unfolded. There are certainly a lack of clear public guidelines for all states and the EU laws have yet to be expanded to ensure democratic rights for all citizens. What is more, the impact and
general attitude from the EU towards member states’ governments is not nearly adequate. It is vital that we acknowledge that the lack of rightful laws for all affects not only the welfare of LGBT citizens, but every person in the EU through wrongful behaviour or discrimination seen in everyday life. Therefore, it is the business of everyone to truly hear one another. In addition, we should ask ourselves whether it is right that our great neighbours Bob and Harry cannot marry or raise a child, even though they pay taxes, have wonderful personalities, are exemplary citizens and only wish to bring more love and happiness to the world.
Greenhouse
CLIM
ARE WE
burning our lives AWAY?
WORDS & PHOTO RAINERS KNISS
F
irstly, I agree that the climate change is an urgent issue and that the world needs to do something to stop or slow down greenhouse effects. I disagree on the concept of the USA supporting UN climate change targets. This is because the USA has not accepted other stances and global legislation such as the Kyoto Protocol and have not even signed this. Therefore I would argue that the EU needs to look more seriously and find precise information about why global partners are not supporting this effort. It is also unrealistic to believe that these stances will change dramatically in the future ei-
ther. This is largely because the USA is the biggest CO2 producer in the world and if they sign the Kyoto Protocol it would significantly harm their economic standpoint in the world as factories would need to decrease their production rates. I believe that there should be some kind of financial punishment for these high-emission countries who aren’t doing their job in the fight against climate changes. They need to encourage the use of renewable resources and find new ways in which the EU can be independent especially from countries like Russia. We can see situations such as that in Ukraine where one of
the Russia’s bargaining tools is the gas supply to control the territory of Ukraine. I believe that there should be less investment in nuclear power as there is too much of a risk to take given that those fund are not adequate to take such a risk. If something were to go wrong in a nuclear power station there could be humungous problems in the long term. All in all, the reduction of fossil fuel usage throughout the world using other techniques such as hydropower should significantly reduce the greenhouse effect within our lifetime.
LIBE
Monopoly Media Diversification –
A Necessary Evil? WORDS & PHOTO KATRINA SITNIECE
O
nly 14% of the world’s population live in countries that support free media. The other 86% each day experience mass media censorship and propaganda. You may think that this percentage is a hoax or that mass media freedom is not an issue to be worried about, but let me convince you that it indeed is a serious topic in society today. The monopoly ownership of broadcasting companies is a threat to modern media. The European Union has enforced a number of laws regarding human rights and data protection but it has none surrounding media pluralism. Very few countries have established a position where there are several main sources of media; in most places there are a small
number of large corporations that the majority of information stems from. The lack of diversity of viewpoints creates a situation in which the society only receives one sided, biased information that may highly differ from the genuine source. A citizen’s opinion is increasingly dependent on the specific media that they wish to support. National governments are utilising this more and more to influence their citizens. However, the picture is not only black and white. Imagine what would happen if all forms of media would be published without censorship? It is the government’s job to protect their citizens from any kind of threats and false information. It is in our own interests as citizens to be pro-
tected from propaganda and negative influence from mass media sources, which in the long run can create social division. There are already signs of this happening in Latvia as the national and Russian minority media differ noticeably from one another. This is causing a clash between these two communities. Connected media sources would ensure that information is being shared in both languages without any distortion from either side. There is a thin line between mass media domination and the protection of the national security. Freedom of speech is a long held dream for all of society; is it as innocent as it has been said to be?
Water
ENVI
Exploiting Seas WORDS & PHOTO LAURI LAHTINEN
T
he EU has been fighting climate change with initiatives such as the EU Emissions Trading System for a long time. However, the EU has not made a similar initiative that would cap pollution going into seas, and such measures alone would not be sufficient seeing as non-EU countries also surround European seas. As mentioned in the Topic Overview, it is often in the interests of businesses to keep on exploiting European seas to maximise profit, and such attitudes should be sanctioned more heavily than currently. In Russia, for example, many businesses are happier to pay sanctions than install filtering
for their wastewater. Furthermore, the existing legislation suffers from the lack of non-binding targets for countries, among other things. Even though the collaboration between governments needs to be increased, it should not be forgotten that some already takes place. For instance, Finland has collaborated with the Russian city of St. Petersburg since 1991. Fruits of this collaboration include a costly project to build a water treating plant to the Russian city of St. Petersburg that was completed in 2013. This has greatly helped to cut the amount of phosphorus and nitrogen leaked into the Baltic Sea. A con-
siderable amount of the city’s wastewater is still untreated with Russia considered the largest polluter of the Baltic Sea. These recent events have damaged the EU-Russia relations. A key problem in environmental issues like this is that the growth-based economy of today is anything but sustainable. Under current circumstances, the argument of economic growth leading to increased quality of life seems deeply paradoxical. Ensuring economic prosperity is often prioritised in decision-making process, but nature and the environment have as much, if not more impact on people’s lives.
AFCO
Integration
We’re All
In This Together! WORDS & PHOTO MARTIN LAIDLA
T
he biggest challenge to overcome for European Union in the near future is the alienation of EU Member States’ citizens from the institutions of EU and from the union itself. If the point of European countries being in a union is to have better economic status on the global market through better cooperation and distribution of resources then the value of feeling as whole with other countries, with other cultures and with its people should be the most significant thing to protect and to improve. Sadly, cherishing this value among cit-
izens of Member States is alarmingly decreasing. Difficult times in economy have undermined the wish to be as one. It’s a law of social integration that when a group of similar people - a whole country in this case – is having hard time, it starts increasingly holding on its own and caring less about others who are not so similar not in the same country. Adding fuel to fire is the view that “The others” are responsible for dragging “us” even more down due to their incompetence – the bailouts of many member states. This has resulted in growing national-
ism and anti-EU mentalities. Maybe the bureaucratic expansion and integration of EU has been too fast for cross-cultural integration to keep up with it and in light of difficult times the dichotomy has come out in a hard way alienating each other but the fact is that we’re all in it together. Before getting to the more EU or less question, we need to question how we can get people to acknowledge that we’re in it together and that together is the only way we can go on, be it with more or less integrated European Union.
Threat
SEDE
Are We Taking Our
Freedom For Granted? WORDS & PHOTO TRIIN NAUDI
I
magine being woken up in the middle of the night, taken from your bed at gunpoint and put on a train filled with thousands of crying men, women and children. With bare hands, an empty stomach and weeks of travel, this train will take you a prison camp where you will for many years to come. Today, all this seems like an unrealistic nightmare, but in fact this is exactly what happened to nearly three million innocent people 70 years ago, who were deported to Siberia for several fictional “crimes” against the Soviet Union rule. In the comfort of the 21st century, people tend to forget the value of freedom. However, now more
than ever, Europe needs to fully realise the threat it faces from the East. With Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its on-going criminal activity in other parts of Ukraine, our current security situation in Europe is nothing but worrying. After all, it was only 9 years ago, when Russia’s president Vladimir Putin openly stated that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical catastrophe. This speech, together with numerous verbal threats, examples of kidnap such as Estonian intelligence officers and multiple airspace violations has left many people wondering whether Putin is secretly looking for ways to restore history. If that should be the case, Europe needs
to reform its security policies as soon as possible in order to ensure its territorial integrity. Once people have acknowledged the history behind Europe’s current situation, what should be our next step? There are some that support diplomacy and compromise, whereas others see strong and radical measures as the only way to tackle the situation. Recognising today’s similar patterns with the situation before World War II, it makes me wonder - have we learned from our past mistakes? Or are we back where we were in both 1914 and 1939?
Sponsors