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EDITORIAL Dear delegates, By now you have met your committee, done some teambuilding, brainstormed and discussed your committee topic, and phrase the clauses that will make up your resolution. Committee Work, as brought up in our first issue, is the heart of the session, where all the different minds come together and tackle a specific European problem. It is where you can no longer just complain about what is going wrong, but have to think of concrete solutions to respond to it. Tomorrow, you will debate these resolutions in General Assembly. General Assembly is quite scary, for most at least. It is the first time many of you will stand up in front of a room with so many people, to make a point, defend, discuss. But this is the point of EYP, as you probably noticed during teambuilding: to push you out of your comfort zone, thrust you in a situation you have never been in before, and see that you can do it. So let the adrenaline flush through your veins and take the microphone. Yours, Tuna Dökmeci & Rebecca Smith
CONTENTS Un Long Voyage Approaching Lucy Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what’s for lunch Going Analogue The Problematic European Vision Ars Orationis: The Art of Holding Speeches Repenser la démocratie au sein de l’UE EYP vs. MUN The Use of French in EYP: For and Against 2
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Un long voyage Le PEJ n’est pas qu’un voyage dans une autre ville ou un autre pays, mais aussi un voyage intellectuel et culturel en partant à la rencontre de personnes de toutes horizons. Elodie Métral raconte le début de ce voyage pour quelques délégations.
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algré l’ignorance de cette délégation pour les journos, ils ont quand même accepté de répondre à mes questions. Ce n’est pas seulement que la délégation du Lycée Clemenceau qui vient de Nantes participe pour la première fois au PEJ mais c’est aussi la première expérience pour leur lycée qui n’a actuellement pas de club. Ils ont hâte de débattre sur un sujet, apprendre plus sur l’Europe de manière plus ludique, et tout simplement s’éclater ! Leur plus grande appréhension est bien naturellement passer devant le jury. Mais ne vous inquiétez pas, tout se passera bien! Pour le lycée Marie-Joseph qui se trouve à Trouville, les journos notent un peu tout ce qu’il se passe et leur rôle est « de prendre des photos, même si ça ne les intéresse pas, mais ils
en tirent le meilleur ». Sachant qu’aucun voyage ne se passe sans encombre, un délégué a raté son train à rigoureusement une minute près. Même s’ils appréhendent le Committee Work, ils sont ont vraiment hâte de rencontrer d’autres gens, ainsi que d’en apprendre plus sur l’Europe. De leur côté, la délégation de St Vincent de Providence à Rennes fait preuve de beaucoup de second degrés. Car non, nous ne sommes pas des « sous traitants » de TF1, mais oui, nous écrivons des articles « pour quand on sera vieux et qu’on se souviendra de notre jeunesse ». Malgré leur bonne humeur, ils reconnaissent avoir peur de l’Assemblée Plénière, ne serait-ce que parler devant tout le monde, comme la plupart d’entre vous ! Pour finir, les lycéens de Notre
Dame de l’Espérance à SaintNazaire détiennent la meilleure des anecdotes à raconter une fois de retour chez eux. Avec une heure et demi de retard, leur train a le mérite d’avoir percuter un chevreuil à pleine vitesse. Mais leur humeur n’a en rien été ébranlée. Ils sont toujours aussi motivés, près à exposer de profondes réflexions sur l’Europe. La hâte de rencontrer de nouvelles personnes les gagne, car au PEJ, les personnes sont tellement plus ouvertes. Il faut dire qu’en plus de tout ça, le PEJ aura aussi servit à quelque chose d’autre. Maintenant, vous pourrez dire que vous êtes allés à Grenoble pendant 3 jours, et pas seulement « pour aller faire du ski ».
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You mentioned during teambuilding that you don’t like the term ‘President’. Why? I think that the President is basically a cross between a chair and an organiser. For me a president is someone who helps the organisers to put all their plans into place, and is there to support all the chairs, to train them and make them feel that they are going to do a good job. The name “President” makes you sound like a hierarchal important position and that is not the case. What do you want people to first notice about you when they meet you for the first time? I think that what I would really like is for people to think that I am approachable and that they feel comfortable around me. From what I have seen, you are a joyful person full of energy. How does EYP shape that personality? 4
Approaching Lucy The president gave a few minutes of her precious time to speak with Triantafyllos Kouloufakos with the aim of bringing her closer to the delegates.
I think basically when you get a group of young people together, and generally in EYP we gather many young, interested and intelligent people. It is like when two atoms hit each other and they spark, producing more energy, EYP is a version of that. As Greek people say, great decisions are usually taken spontaneously. How do you cope with big decisions? Which one do you think is the biggest and the most important you have taken recently? I generally am a very extroverted person and I actually vocalize all my problems. When I have a problem I usually call my mom and I talk talk talk for ten minutes and by the end of it I convince myself that I know the answer. About the recent decision, this is the last year of university and a big decision I have not taken yet is what I am going to do next year. I am not going to do a Masters or anything, and generally do
not know what to do. A lot of people think that when you get your Bachelors you must get your Master’s degree also but I am not going to. You surely are a loved person among your officials and almost anyone would be happy to be around you. What about your loved ones? What would you be willing to sacrifice for them? That’s an interesting question because it depends on who are your loved ones. Generally when I am here at the session my loved ones are the chairs and the officials and the delegates and I am really willing to do anything for them if I thought it would help the session in general. In my home I am really close with my family and some friends. I really like helping people and I would pretty much be happy to sacrifice anything, within reason of course. I do not mind losing my sleep for example or do favours.
Could you tell me one thing that according to your opinion people do not value much in EYP? I think that something that is not valued in EYP is the fact that we actually do EYP in the first place. What are we trying to do, the bottom line of EYP, is to get young people together to talk about European issues, and we usually overlook that. We are so concentrated on doing a good speech when we are delegates, or make sure that the coffee break is well organized when you are an organizer, or writing a good article when you are a journalist. I think that the core of our job is gathering these young people to talk about European issues, something usually overlooked.
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Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what’s for lunch Eurovillage is where you will experience the true meaning of cultural diversity. We are talking about something close to every European heart: food. During this EYP event, you will for example find out that this weird pink soup is actually beat soup from Latvia. Claire Defossez, Zabeth Wagemann and Elodie Metral will tell you about how to expand your gustative horizons.
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rom Norway to Turkey, Europe is a continent filled with gastronomic diversity. Indeed, Scottish people enjoy meals like Haggis whereas Dutch people are satisfied with a piece of Gouda. Because you do not choose the country you represent at Eurovillage, chances are high that you will be surprised by the food you will have to prepare. So do not freak out if you get the Czech Republic appointed to your delegation, because you can still prepare a mouthwatering soup consisting of a suspicious looking liquid with massive units floating in it. Sounds way more appetizing than a bar of Toblerone, doesn’t it? You might find foreign food in EYP sessions somewhat frightening. And maybe sometimes, you should worry. As a matter of fact, our video-editor Leo Sjöberg brought the Swedish specialty of liquorice, with which he has already managed to intoxicate half our officials team. It was described by our Greek journalist Triantafyllos as “hellish”. Sometimes you may not even know you should be frightened. You are overwhelmed by the deliciousness of something, and it turns out to be a cow’s heart. (The toilet is on the ground floor by the way). But hey, at least now you have a nice story to tell during awkward silences at boring family reunions. Plus, you know where not to go when planning a culinary trip. But however weird their food might be, what’s important is that you learn a lot about another country’s tradition by being curious about
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their eating habits. Be honest with yourself, you don’t want to be stuck with your café-croissant at every breakfast for the rest of your life. It might be refreshing starting your day with a Taschenwurst, like in Germany. Learning about foreign food is also learning about a country’s history and culture. It has been passed over from generation to generation, contributing to a unique national identity. What would France be without its infamous cuisses de grenouilles? So don’t be afraid to try that brown jelly thing from Ukraine. It’s not going to eat you.
GOING ANALOGUE
Going analogue during the rise of digitalisation: Do you consider it hipster? Our journo Marko Kazic wants you to take the analogue camera and see the world at its best.
“Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution” – Ansel Adams
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ou take your analogue camera. You put the film in. You close the cover. You turn the film. First you look at the ISO, arrange the shutter speed and then the aperture. You focus on the object and press the shutter release button. It is the first one of 36 photos you have. You can’t see it but you guess the light is just fine. You hope that the depth is quite good and then you feel excited because you can’t wait to see it. Whether it is a portrait or a landscape, you know that the analogue camera will add something special to it; something that is going to surprise you and make you see everything around you differently. Now, imagine going to a dark room and working on the photos. Everything around you is red and you can’t see properly. You reflect the light on the paper and put it in different ba-
sins filled with liquid. You now have the photo. Maybe you didn’t get the result you had in mind, but still, the process starting from the moment you put the film in is just irreplaceable. Analogue photography will eventually save you time. Basically, when we shoot digital, we have hundreds of photos that need to be sorted out and post-processed. With an analogue film roll, you come back with around 40 photos. There is no post-processing needed. All these tutorials on how to edit files in Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom are not needed any more. Sometimes the only thing people say when they see a photo taken with analogue camera is that it is hipster. Well, to a certain extent, it fits into the explanation of the word hipster, but for me, this approach is rather
trivial. It basically means that those people can’t say anything about the analogue photography because they have never tried to do it and they judge it by saying that it’s hipster. Imagine having an analogue laboratory at the EYP sessions. Surely, it would cost a lot of money and represent one of the highest parts of the budget but still money shouldn’t be a problem, right? The journalist would have their own dark room and the delegates would get their photos at the end of the day. No Facebook. Nobody is going to cry out loud for the Wi-Fi because now the photos are in their pockets. Most importantly: if you don’t like the photo you don’t need to share it!
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The Problematic European Vision
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he incredible development of the European Union was definitely not predictable at the time the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the often honored Winston Churchill, spoke these words. However, this vision of a unified Europe became reality when such ideas were further discussed. In the mid“We must build a kind of United dle of the 20th century, six countries set the basis States of Europe. In this way only for the system still existing today and agreed to set up an organisation focusing on the pursuit of will hundreds of millions of toilcommon goals to ensure a future in peace, prosers be able to regain the simple perity and security. joys and hopes which make life From this moment on, not only positive asworth living.“ pects, such as incredible development in the field of security and communication within member - Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of states, took place on this very special continent. the United Kingdom, By entering the European Union, the new Mem19 September, 1946 ber States were naturally required to hand over a lot of power and thereby have to partly lose their independence. Taking into account all the advantages the admission to the Union could give, loss of independence was not really an issue. It was after the beginning of the European economic crisis that national governments started 8
Claire Defossez and Nina Thomic outline controversial aspects of Member states being part of the European Union while still keeping their independence.
questioning the “European vision”, also considering the remaining advantages for their states. The debate about supranationalism versus national sovereignty became highly relevant. Federalists point out the fact that supranationalism makes it easier to make collective decisions and scrutinize, as became painfully clear with the bankruptcy of the southern countries. A transparent and independent monitoring of their financial situations could have prevented the downfall of southern economies. Furthermore, as the lack of collective European action towards Libya showed us, delegation of national powers to the European Union is essential for an effective common foreign policy. Especially on this policy area it is of utmost importance that conflicting national interests are not getting into the way of a unified framework. By giving extensive competences to the EU, Europe has the chance to regain its position as a respectable power on the world’s political stage. However, opponents often refer to the fact that decisions taken on a supranational level might also have cultural implications leading
to the erosion of national identity and tradition. Particularly when aiming for a common legal framework, which cannot include the national perspectives on delicate issues. The common legalisation of abortion for example, would be incompatible with widely spread religious beliefs and morals within many European countries. This prioritises European over national identity which leads to the loss of one of Europe’s greatest assets – its cultural diversity. Due to this, Member states are reluctant to delegate their power to Brussels. Governments try to retain as much of their power as possible or try at least to hide the fact that most decisions are taken on a supranational level. To come back to Churchill’s words, we have been heading along the path towards the United States of Europe. Although the now existing union has been developing very fast, Europe is close to reaching its limits due to the wide range of different cultural identities. It is thus vital to find a balance between giving up national powers - leaving national identity behind - and further supporting the vision of a unified Europe. 9
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Ars Orationis: The Art of Holding Speeches With the example of a 2000-year-old speech, Nina Thomic explains what a good speech is and how you can perform with confidence on the stage of the General Assembly.
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ore than 2000 years ago, in 63 B.C. to be precise, Consul Cicero held the still well known speech against his fellow senator Catilina, who was accused of murder. Catilina apparently had plotted a plan to assassinate Cicero, against which the latter wanted to warn the state, addressed to the Roman consulate in his speech. After this oratio was written down, it became one of the most important Latin rhetoric masterpieces, and is often used as an important basis for modern speeches of our time. It is remarkable that even for the speeches written for Nazi propaganda, a lot of aspects resemble to Cicero’s speech. Cicero used a strict, quite typical framework for structuring his arguments and stressed them with the use of many different style figures, such as metaphors or antitheses. It is of utmost importance to imply expressions and phrasing that is attracting the attention of an audience. Thanks to style figures, a speaker can emotionally approach people listening and can influence them. A typical speech in Ancient Rome would start with the socalled exordium. In this part the speaker concentrates on the
consensus omnium bonorum, meaning that he would identify himself as part of the audience and outline their sovereignty. Cicero regards himself as the pater patrie, believing in himself to be in the role of the hero saving the state from Catilina. He often uses this really strong contrast by presenting himself as the positive and Catilina as the negative influence and enemy of citizens. Moreover, Cicero lets the people identify with the presented arguments and emphasises the difference from the opposing point of view. In the Narratio, Cicero presented all of Catilina’s plans and thereby had proof to underline his arguments. Afterwards the Argumentatio, again consisting out of Confirmatio and Refutatio followed. At the beginning, the speaker is once again outlining the most important arguments and explains them in this longest section of the speech. For the second part, it is vital to devalue the opposing side by already answering to the attackable points. This technique aims to attack the other side and therefore giving more power to the arguments defended. However, the speaker should not at all base this approach on an emotional
basis, but should rather state solid arguments. Rhetoric in those times was always built up on strong arguments and solid proof. The audience is usually really hard to convince, especially when bearing in mind how hard it is to change the already-existing personal opinions. It is impressive how much we can actually learn from outstanding personalities like Cicero, having lived about 2000 years ago. By using these aforementioned structures and techniques it is for sure that writing high-quality speeches is not hard to achieve any more. The audience will be much more likely to listen actively if there is a structure behind all of the used expressions within the speech. Even if a speech seems to be something really spontaneous, in fact creating a speech requires a lot of effort and time. This process demands creativity and self-confidence, more than it is needed for writing a text. The perfect speech needs to be a balanced mixture of an organised structure, emotional correspondence and spontaneity in order to be able to grab people’s attention and make the presentation a success.
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Repenser la démocratie au sein de l’UE Gabriel Plathey se propose pour ouvrir le champs des possibles, et entrevoir le dénouement de la crise politique actuelle.
Sommes-nous, en tant que citoyen-ne-s européen-ne-s, réellement en pleine possession de notre pouvoir politique ? La voix des Roms bulgares trouve-t-elle le même écho que celle des lobbyistes de l’industrie pétrochimique ou audio-visuelle ? J’en doute fort, et la réalité me donne malheureusement raison ... L’institution européenne avec son mystique système « démocratique », s’il en est, reste loin de son objectif d’égalité quant à l’accès à la parole et aux débats. Les deux organismes décisionnels institutionnels, le Conseil (composé de ministres affiliés aux gouvernements des États membres) et le Parlement de l’Union Européenne, restent éloignés des préoccupations de chacun-ne-s. L’électoralisme qui pourvoit la légitimité n’est pourtant pas favorable à la participation des citoyen-ne-s. Le vote et la délégation du pouvoir sont au contraire une perte pour la démocratie car ils éjectent par la même toutes les formes d’actions populaires du circuit une fois les représentant-e-s élu-e-s pour cinq ans (seulement pour 12
les euro-députés). Sans la possibilité de révoquer les mandats, avec de faibles opportunités pour influer sur les décisions et une normalisation des carrières politiques, l’actuelle situation est bien sombre. Pire, la volonté des euro-députés est quelque peu restreinte dans son intégrité par des groupes de pressions toujours plus puissants et tentaculaires. Nombre d’articles de loi, accords ou autres motions sont directement issus des dossiers proposés par les lobbys et sont votés sans aucune modification ou annotation, à se demander s’il y a eu ne serait-ce qu’une simple relecture. Gangréné, vérolé, parasité et intouchable, la gouvernance européenne laisse rêveur, ou plutôt, nous plonge dans un plus que certain marasme démocratique, une crise politique qui s’ajoute à celles économique et sociale. Il y a plusieurs moyens de répondre à ce problème. La démocratie directe, l’autonomie par des assemblées générales populaires ouvertes, est celle que j’ai choisi de développer. Avec ce concept, le modèle de la société verticale et centralisée que nous connaissons n’a plus lieu d’être. Il n’est plus nécessaire de posséder un bagage universitaire pour interagir et prendre part à la construction d’une législation. L’important est alors de donner à tous la possibilité de débattre sur des sujets à une échelle régionale, nationale, continentale ou globale, mais surtout le pouvoir d’une action locale pour tou-te-s les citoyen-ne-s. Repenser les bases de la représentativité en offrant à tous la voix au chapitre est un pas en avant vers l’égalité, la solidarité et la fraternité. Le terrain d’expérimentation qu’offre l’Union européenne est vaste, et il ne tient qu’à nous d’envisager et de construire l’avenir.
EYP vs. MUN Two simulations, two different ways of thinking. Zabeth Wagemann explains why she prefers European Youth Parliament to Model United Nations.
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he European Youth Parliament is not the only organisation focusing on international relationships and political issues with the aim of involving “young, dynamic and sometimes a little crazy delegates”, as described in the famous EYP presentation video. Indeed, another important organisation is Model United Nations (MUN). A simulation of the United Nations as the European Youth Parliament is that of the European Parliament, MUN is known for its conferences organised worldwide. Within committees that are usually bigger than those of EYP, everyone represents a country and defends the position and opinion of that country. Model UN conferences are usually only composed of committee work. That is why you don’t get to know your fellow delegates as well as at EYP sessions where you have Eurovillage, parties and Teambuilding where you might
be expected to pass an orange to someone you just met without using hands. The ambiance between the delegates is therefore quite different at an EYP session than at an MUN session. Model United Nations could therefore be described as a more “academical” way of approaching international relations and political issues. As a matter of fact, rather than writing a resolution by debating and reaching a consensus within your committee, defending your country’s point of view and making powerful speeches about the topic are most valued. Therefore, at the end of a session, your result is not a common achievement but rather an individual success or failure. Moreover, since committees don’t experience a General Assembly at most of the Model UN conferences, committee subjects sometimes aren’t presented to the delegates from other committees. In that sense, the result of the
committee work in a Model UN session is not a resolution in the way we write it in EYP. The stronger speaker, the more influence he has in the resolution. For instance, the delegate representing Germany in one of the Model UN sessions I attended had a great eloquence and a loud voice. Our resolution was therefore based on Germany’s point of view about the issue. Thus, prices are delivered for the best speaking, the most eloquent delegate and the best-dressed one, which increase the competition between participants. According to the experiences of EYPers who attended MUN sessions, the competitiveness of the latter leads to a colder atmosphere rather than the solidarity we have in EYP: The fact that Model Union Nations is more international may seem attractive but after having experienced both, I can say that EYP is the one that feels like home to me. 13
THE USE OF FOR
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remièrement, le PEJ nous offre la possibilité de s’ouvrir aux nouveaux horizons en apprenant de nouvelles choses. D’après Célia Poncelin, chargée des officiels au bureau national du PEJ-France, le but principal de notre organisation est de permettre à tout le monde de s’engager. Le but est d’intégrer des lycées défavorisés pour qu’ils aient aussi l’expérience unique et spéciale dans le monde du PEJ. Elle dit encore que le PEJ France est un des comités nationaux travaillant sur les connections entre les participants à l’échelle nationale, plutôt que de seulement former des connections à l’échelle internationale. De plus, il faut incontestablement se rappeler le fait que le PEJ a été fondé en France et prend alors ses racines de la 14
France. Marko Kazic, journaliste, souligne de plus l’importance de saisir l’une de ces opportunités et de prendre l’initiative de parler aux gens. Même si l’on n’est pas complètement sûr de son niveau en français ; en pratiquant, nous surmontons les obstacles linguistiques en dehors du cadre scolaire ou universitaire. La maîtrise des langues est désormais indispensable dans le monde de l’entreprise qui est toujours plus exigeant, explique Samuel Fely, le chair de JURI. Mohamed Atiek, le chair de CULT, pense que le français est encore la langue la plus importante d’Europe et est présente très souvent dans le processus de travail de l’UE. Cette langue est encore beaucoup utilisée dans les relations diplomatiques et n’est pas du tout
by Nina Thomic
qu’un alternatif à l’anglais. D’un côté, pour tous les membres de notre organisation, il est obligatoire de maîtriser l’anglais, alors que d’un autre côté, certains membres ne semblent pas vraiment intéressés par l’apprentissage du français. Etant donné le développement toujours plus complexe de notre monde, l’apprentissage de cette langue merveilleuse est encore essentiel. De ce fait, il est de notre responsabilité de conserver la diversité linguistique aux sessions du PEJ, ainsi que dans tous les travaux à l’échelle internationale. En prenant en compte tous les arguments ci-dessus, cela serait bizarre de ne plus parler la langue de Molière.
FRENCH IN EYP AGAINST
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lthough French is seen as one of the most beautiful languages in the world, I believe that English should serve as the one and only official language in EYP. Therefore I asked the officials of the sessions where they stood on that topic. The task was challenging given that over half of the officials are French and not supporting this opinion. As an important part of an organisation such as EYP is about tradition, keeping French as one of the official languages might seem to be very important. However, „it still gives a very exclusivist outlook on French speaking natives and takes out one of the biggest concepts of EYP: inclusion“ claims Alexandra Lazar, chairperson of JURI. EYP is all about integration, communication, understanding each other
and debating. Without even having a common language, there is no way to keep sessions working on an international level. Emma, the organiser says that French is not a universal language and that not everyone understands it. Moreover, Elodie Métral, journalist, is convinced that it is important for people to get used to speak in English, the universal language. Especially French delegates can learn a lot from the experience of debating serious issues in a foreign language and this is what EYP is all about: learning by doing. No one is here because they are already perfect at everything. There will always be something you can learn or improve, and this includes language skills too. Claire Defossez, journalist, even goes further claiming that the fact that French is an official
by Anna Morokhovska
language of European diplomacy stems even at the time of the Concert of Europe. Speaking French was a sign that you came from a noble family; so using French in diplomacy is actually a symbol of an elitist culture. She thinks that a young, progressive organisation such as EYP should let go of this archaic concept and adapt itself to the modern world. EYP is a modern organisation; it was founded 26 years ago in Fontainebleau, France, which is why French was established as an official language. Then it developed and became the international organisation we have now. EYP is modern and so are we. So raise your voice, participants. But please, do it in English.
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Ils nous ont soutenus pour cet évènement :
Ils soutiennent le Parlement Européen des Jeunes-France toute l'année :
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