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ISSUE 2

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C NTENT

AFCO I

AFCO II

AFCO III

AFET I

HANS

AFET II

DROI

ECON

ITRE

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Dear delegates and participants of the European Forum Poděbrady 2014,

The Media Team is proud to present you a prod-uct inspired by your own work. Committee Work is coming to an end and General Assembly ap-proaches; but for the dance to be perfect, every-one should know all the steps. To help you grasp the process which your colleagues, by now maybe friends, went through in their own committees, we have compiled a summary of the past two days in this issue. Have a look around and make sure you do not skip the interview with the session presi-dent, who also gave us his personal comments on some of the topics (follow the moustache ).

With love,Your Media Team

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AFCO IWhen it comes to foreign affairs, everybody

has an opinion. The European Union has its stance, every Member State wants to pursue its own interests and various international organisa-tions, such as the United Nations, are also involved. It may seem that sometimes there are almost too many players on the field of foreign affairs to ever reach a common goal.

Luckily, there is another player who has a strong opinion on foreign affairs – the members of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs I. Would they be able to find a compromise and agree among themselves? A group of twelve strong individuals il-lustrates on a smaller scale how difficult it is to find a solution that every involved party is willing to ac-cept. Therefore, reaching a decision within the EU, where all 28 Member States have to agree (vote in favour) in the field of foreign policy is even a greater challenge.

On the other hand, the principle of unanimity, whilst complicating the decision-making process, shows the maturity of EU democracy, and reflects the sensitivity of foreign affairs issues. Opinions and interests of every single Member State matter equally, they are listened to, and taken into consid-eration. Shaping foreign policy is an integral part of a sover-eign state. It defines a state at an international level. Therefore, the Member States are strongly against any limitation of this competence. That is also why Member States are still allowed to pursue their own foreign policy, at the same time as the EU pursues its own. For example, travel bans that the EU intro-duces could be extended by Member States at their own discretion.

AFCO I, among other things, will discuss the de-cision-making process of the EU, the institutional framework, and the varied interests of different par-ties.

Michal Novotný (CZ)

Notes:

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European External Action Service vs. the European Council – With the EU’s stance on the Ukrainian crisis still unclear and many future international issues ahead of us, what is the future for EU foreign affairs? Who should govern it to ensure that the EU is able to attain the role of a decisive and coherent partner at global level?

The Lisbon treaty introduced important changes to the so-called Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). It established the High Representa-tive of the Union for Foreign and Security Affairs, merging the previous External Relations Commis-sioner and the CFSP High Representative, chairing the Foreign Affairs Council and being Commission Vice-President. Therefore, it in some way connects two important EU institutions – the Council and the Commission.

The Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) is responsible for the EU’s external action. The High Representa-tive then executes the decisions made by the Coun-cil. The High Representative is assisted by the EU External Action Service (EEAS), the diplomatic corps of the EU.

The shaping of EU foreign policy is still far from be-ing perfect. Unpredictable and unexpected issues, such as the current situation in Ukraine, show that the EU is lacking efficient tools to tackle such issues.The EU decisions cannot address issues that need immediate reaction, the decision- making pro-cedure is too slow – at least that is what AFCO I thinks. Moreover, the imposed sanctions were con-siderably weak, given that Member States have close economic ties towards Russia and cannot really af-

ford to impose stricter sanctions. This fact is obvi-ous when we compare EU sanctions to US sanc-tions, since US does not have as close economic ties towards Russia.

Will AFCO I be able to cure the illness of CFSP? What exactly should be changed so that EU becomes a true global player, which is a role that it strives for? Many questions are waiting to be answered and AFCO I is certainly ready to do so. They are a truly knowledgeable committee that is not afraid of chal-lenges.

I think that the Commission should get more power in foreign affairs, with the

help of the EEAS. The High Representative being more focussed on the role as being part of the Commission and less influence

from the Council; 28 countries deciding together their stance vis-à-vis interna-

tional situations whilst at the same time still allowing them to do the same thing at

a national level is challenging.

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Striving towards a more democratic European Union: This July marks the celebra-tion of the 62nd Anniversary of the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community, the precursor to what is now the European Union. How can the influ-ence of the European Parliament, the only directly elected institution of the EU, be strengthened whilst at the same time balancing Member States right to sovereign-

ty as well as the unity of the European Union?

The EU has arguably had issues with democratic legitimacy since the first European Parliament

elections in 1979. However, at least the Lisbon treaty shows that leaders have taken note of the issue, and tried to act accordingly. Participative democracy is one that is close to its citizens, who can actively take part, e.g. through European Citizens' Initiatives, and therefore have a major role in the decision-making process. The EU has aspired towards becoming such a democracy. We share with you a window on AFCO II, so you may also participate.

Jake: “I find it disturbing that Germany has 99 MEPs. Therefore Germany on its own has much more influence on decisions than for example Lux-embourg with only their 6 seats in the EP. The rea-son for this is that the number of seats each coun-try gets is measured on population. There are caps, though, a minimum of 5 MEPs and a maximum of 99 per country.”

Glenn: “In the latest EP elections in 2014, 90% of Luxemburgians voted, and for a country where vot-ing is mandatory, the missing 10% is a large number. On the opposite end is Romania, where only 7% of people voted.”

Melinda: “If you force people to vote, it is not going to help raise their interest in politics.”

Ella: “The seat distribution is quite problematic. An option would be trans-European elections, where the candidates' nationality would not matter. To make this work, the amount of seats would have to be com-pletely rearranged.”

Teresa: “Domestic political parties are grouped into European parties. The core problem is that the vot-ing system varies from country to country. Also, one votes for their candidate as a Labour member, for example, but if the candidate gets elected, they will become a member of an European party, which has differing interests due to it operating on an EU level.”

Melinda: “You can only vote for your national can-didates. It is possible that one does not find any suit-able candidates from their own country, but rather a foreign one.”

Measures already taken to decrease the EU's Democratic Deficit

Glenn: “There is the White Paper, that has made the decision-making process itself more transparent in EU. It entered force long before the treaty of Lisbon, so it as such is outdated now. Anyway, an objective was set for making the decision-making process more transparent. TWP is a legal instrument, and a tool used to introduce change. It is essentially a sort of an amendment.”

Arriana: “EYP is, in its own way, a measure already taking place. Though obviously EYP wasn't set up by EU and is independent, the latter still engages with the former.”

Notes:

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AFCO IIGroup findings and comments

Glen, Nais & Jake: “66% of EU citizens feel like their voice is not heard. Additionally, surveys say Europe-an people are more likely to trust their regional and local governments than the EU.”

Teresa, Arriana, Sophia & Astrid: “Between 15-30% of MEPs are eurosceptical.”

Continuing with the numbers, less than 15% of the legislative initiatives from MEPs become law, since the rest do not have the backing from the European Commission.

Nowadays young people up to 24 years of age are the less supportive age group towards the EU. It is worth noting since the situation used to be vice versa; the youth were once the most supportive age group.

Alberto, Aritz, Melinda & Ella: “60% of EU citizens do not trust the EP, which is concerning. The apa-thetic voters and people with little knowledge or in-terest about EU are one of the several causes for this.”

Transparency

Jake: “A major concern is that organisations such as lobby groups have a lot of power, which they try to use to influence the EU institutions. Furthermore, the ECI can be used by lobbyist groups, in addition its original target audience, everyday citizens.”

Glenn: “Lobbying is not particularly democratic or transparent. These people affecting the decision-making process are not directly elected at all.”

Melinda: “Debates and hearings should not take place behind closed doors.”

Glenn: “This would make for an unmanageable amount of information. The lack of manageability actually becomes lack of transparency. If all debates were to be recorded, an institution should also be set up to summarise all the information.”

Sophia: “There has to be the possibility for that, though, for the ones that actually care about it.”

Lauri Lahtinen (FI)

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AFCO III Britta Thiemt (DE)

“Never doubt that a group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

This quotation from Margaret Mead, an American cultural anthropologist, serves to summarise quite adequately that despite the fact that our democracy is based on the principle of citizens delegating power to elected representatives, the citizens themselves still play a vital role in any active democracy.

This Tuesday, the Committee on Constitutional Af-fairs III (AFCO III) of the European Parliament has assembled in the Czech town of Poděbrady, to deal with the relation of European citizens to the EU in-stitutions representing them.

With a turnout of 43% at the parliamentary elections in May 2014, the seemingly growing dissatisfaction and perceived distance to European institutions and the success of Eurosceptic and nationalist parties all over Europe have been cause for concern for the EU. The response to the complexity of the Union’s set-up and legislative process seems to have been populism, misconceptions and generalisations. The EU has be-come a punching bag for national politicians, even though most of the highly significant legislation that caused criticism among citizens does not (solely) fall

under EU competences.

That being said, there are plenty of versatile oppor-tunities for European citizens to get active, to get involved with European politics. In political parties, NGOs, trade and employers’ unions, at elections, ref-erenda or citizens’ dialogues with elected officials, everybody has the possibility to have an impact on national as well as European policies and their im-plementation. But while many of these possibilities are made use of, the impact citizens can have on EU legislation is still very indirect. This, in combination with the complexity of the EU’s structure and citi-zens’ limited understanding about it limits their in-volvement.

Even the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), which is supposed to be a very direct way of communicat-ing citizens’ opinions to the EU institutions, has been attacked as ineffective. AFCO III discussed several problems of this tool of direct democracy: the bu-reaucracy, long procedures and very strict criteria are challenges they have committed to address in the resolution; the goal being to increase the effective-

What is an ECI?

“The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) is an invitation to the European Commission to propose legislation on matters where the EU has competence to legislate. A citi-zen’s initiative has to be backed by at least one million EU citizens, coming from at least 7 out of the 28 Member States. The European Commission responds to all successful ECIs and outlines how the EU will react to the call of its citizens through their official answer.”

Notes:

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Europe and I: With the European Commission’s unambitious response to the suc-cessful ‘Right2Water’ initiative, what is the future for European Citizens’ Initiatives

and citizen activism in the EU?

ness and the number of successful initiatives, which is currently stagnating at 2 since the launch of the ECI in 2012.

However, the high requirements and organisational obstacles are not the only reason for this discouraging number: many of the pro-posed initiatives are sim-ply not accepted because the area of proposed legislation is not within the EU’s shared or exclu-sive competences. ECIs promoting causes con-cerning e.g. education, taxes and pensions were rejected simply because even if they did reach the required signatures, the EU could never pass a law on them because that responsibility lies with the member states, and would have normally called for an initiative on the national level. “Information is key,” states AFCO III, which is why the commit-tee is planning on, among other measures “increasing media coverage and creating learning opportunities in schools” to provide citizens with the required in-formation to participate in the public discourse, as

AFCO III-representatives Andrew Yuzov and Emily Miao explained.

While these means of increasing citizens’ involvement might be successful eventually, they will not manage to resolve another problem about the ECI: The Com-

mission is not bound to adopt the proposals from the initiatives. This raises the question whether the ECI can be an effective tool for direct democracy at all, and what altera-tions as well as alterna-tives would have to be introduced to increase opportunities for citizens in Europe to have their say on European politics.

“It is vital for the democratic legitimacy of decisions made on the European level that citizens have an ac-tive role in the EU’s legislative process”, Jan De Peuter from AFCO III declared. The committee will most likely try to achieve this goal by increasing the legal weight of successful ECIs. Either way, the coming de-bate of the Committee’s proposal on Sunday is going to be a very interesting one.

A lot of these ECIs ask the Commission to initiate legislation on something the EU doesn’t have the competence on. Some of the ECIs are about issues that are dealt

with in the national governments. So I think if it’s clear from the start that you can actu-

ally do something, then yes it’s useful.

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Policy making in an energy-dependent Europe: what should be the immediate priorities of the European Union regarding EU–Russia relations given the fact that

Russia supplies 30% of Europe’s gas?

The European Union has, so far, been taking a back seat on the situation on gas supply between Rus-

sia and Ukraine. However, the bright young minds of AFCO I today took up the reins.

The EU has long known that it needs to improve its energy security. With this considered, Artem opened AFCO I’s well-read discussion by noting that the demand for gas is steadily rising and consump-tion is surging as a result. Europe has found itself in a deadlock with Russia. In a country with high levels of corruption, as Ana pointed out, it will be hard to configure short-term solutions. However, with Rus-sia’s gas accounting for nearly 30% of Europe's gas consumption - about half of which is transported through Ukraine - the recent events and protests in Kiev have placed it at the top of the European agenda.

Europe’s dependence on Russian gas and the pipe-line projects that company it handicaps the EU’s re-sponse in the Ukraine crisis. James was quick to rec-ognise that Russia’s “history of unpredictable nature,” is a major obstacle in the EU’s decision-making; the European Commission alongside some EU govern-ments have rightly concluded that European de-pendence on Russian gas leaves it exposed to politi-cal pressure from Moscow, which suggests why the EU is treading lightly towards the situation.

Prices of gas and unpaid debt are the tip of the ice-berg in the ongoing dispute between Russia and Ukraine. The future of Russia and the EU’s balance of power rests essentially on the decision from the EU as to how the supply of energy across Europe will be controlled. But is the EU right in simply moderating - rather than leading - the negotiations between the two countries?

There is yet to be a concrete agreement between the EU, Ukraine and Russia with regards to Ukraine’s natural gas bill. A deadlock exists between the two

states, with demands on future gas prices and debts preventing any progressing on the issue. Brussels must show strength as a geopolitical leader in the dis-pute in order to force a concrete negotiation between Russia and Ukraine, however the EU has remained quiet and soft in its approach thus far.

Would it be more beneficial for Europe if Russia took complete control of Ukraine’s pipelines – or even build new pipelines to remove Ukraine from the chain of supply?

Ukraine should pay off their debts so they can make changes to an economy that’s dominated by energy sooner rather than later. The gas prices set by Russia should be influenced by the EU to prevent the nega-tive consequences of the situation from escalating further.

Whilst Russia has offered to lower the price of gas by a third, Yuri Pordan, Ukraine’s energy minister, maintains that lowering the price of gas by $100 per cubic meter was a political move with the intention of destabilising Ukraine’s economy. In reality, Rus-sia’s latest offer is still 44% higher than the subsidised price Ukraine was paying before OAO Gazprom raised the country’s rates in April. Is it in Ukraine’s best interests to liaise with Russia when, as pointed out by Artem, “Ukraine owe so much money that they don’t want to cooperate with [them].”

Notes:

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AFET IIf you look at it from the other side, Russia exports energy but it’s still a big country, I

mean, most people internationally officially regard it as a developing country still. If you

take away that economic stimulus, they have to find other places to export it to and

that’s going to have an influence on the Russian economy, which isn’t currently go-

ing well. So there’s friction there.

“The economic sanctions against Russia will obvi-ously affect the rest of Europe, causing a ‘boomer-ang effect’. When we make sanctions against Russia, we make sanctions against the rest of Europe, too.” - Alex

“The EU depends more on Russia than Russia de-pends on the EU” – Jessie

“The European Commission stopped [South Stream] from being built. Is the EU really acting in the best interests of Ukraine?” - Lars

Hollie Brown (UK)

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On Thursday afternoon, I had the imponderable pleasure to sit down with and interview one of the most important people at this session: Hans Maes. The person who was present everywhere and nowhere at the same time. A president who will awe you with his impeccable knowledge about the EU and much more and make you laugh so hard that you can even for-give him for 25 minute long speeches during Closing Ceremony (although we hopefully will not have to put that statement to the test). Whether it was about the EU and its institutions and policies, his hopes and visions for the session or his personal experiences as a delegate, your session president is undoubtedly a man of many words. Over the next few pages, you have the exceptional opportunity to read some the words he so kindly shared with the Media Team.

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A Challenge: Explaining the European Institutions in brief. Really brief.

“The European Council provides guidelines and strategy. The EC builds on this and initiates legisla-tion to the European Parliament and Council. They co-decide on the legislation initiated by the commis-sion. More? These are the basics.”

Why Hans is Passionate about Foreign Policy

“At first I wasn’t, but when I started doing European Studies, I chose the one focusing on constitutional stuff, but that module had the most theoretical EU-based courses, and it was mainly focussed on EU Foreign Policy. I know a lot about it now. When you finally start grasping some of the things; European Foreign Policy has a lot of flaws, there are so many things which don’t work but could be done different-ly, that’s what’s so intriguing about it. So many things that could be done. But the Member States just don’t want to give their power away [emotional grunt].

It’s really boring if you don’t really grasp it; like math-ematics. But once you see the way these numbers can interact and what you can do with them, it becomes really interesting. Like learning to dance at the gala actually, as soon as the steps and the music came together and it suddenly made sense, that’s when it became fun. I’m also critical of it by the way, it does work at the minute but it does not work as it could. That’s why I keep going on about it.”

Common Misconceptions about the EU

“In general, what a lot of people misunderstand is what the EU can and can’t do, and how much influ-ence the Member States have in that. Critics of the EU very often make it sound like the EU is this body that works by itself without listening to the 28 parts, but that’s not true. The EU has very few areas where it can fully decide without the Member States, and

even there, the Member States influence it via the Council of Ministers. The exclusive competences are listed in the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU: trade, conservation of biological resources in a ma-rine environment, common commercial policy. Not the things that people tend to criticise the EU for.

Then you have the next kind, shared competences. That means if there is a new problem arising, the EU can decide to start taking a position on some-thing. The best recent example is fracking. Energy is a shared competence, so the EU can say “We want to regulate this on a European level.” And if it doesn’t, then it becomes a competence of the Member States. It’s called “occupying the field”. This is where Mem-ber States are cautious not to give too much power to the EU.

Then you have co-ordinated competences like edu-cation. The EU can’t harmonise anything but it can support it, for example with things like Erasmus. That’s where many people go wrong, and where poli-ticians don’t really portray properly the input from the Member States in Europe. They agree to things, and then they come back to their national level, and on television they say they disagreed with it. That re-ally grinds my gears. The EU can only do so much; for example if you start an ECI like the current one on pro-life which wants to outlaw abortion – the EU cannot decide this. That’s a fully Member State com-petence. The EU will never be able make laws like that. Or for example to say, “from now on the retire-ment age is going to be 68”. That’s not possible. But very frequently, national politicians make it sound like it IS the EU causing the problems. So under-standing the competences; and they’re written down, explicitly mentioned in the treaties – if you know that, you know how tied the EU’s hands actually are.”

From Caveman to PresidentBritta Thiemt (DE)

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Let Hans Convince You about the EU

“I’d outline some of the achievements of the EU that either I believe in, or are tangible for the person I want to convince. Like the Schengen area. Travelling across Europe without getting checked at borders is really tangible. The Single Monetary Union too – ob-viously not here in the Czech Republic – but it’s so convenient. And it’s going to get even better, like the reduction of roaming tariffs. Stuff like that, I think can convince people. And then you can go from there, in terms of achievements. I respect grounded arguments against the EU; there are things I’m critical of myself, but I have a different perspective on them and I still see the general idea as a positive thing.”

The EYP’s Impact in Europe

“Recently we’ve been doing Think Tanks. The results are received by high level European officials, and read by high level European officials. It’s a promis-

ing avenue, though the main impact of EYP is in my opinion that it brings together more and more peo-ple every year to broaden their horizons. The way I see it, extremism and nationalism come from staring at your own feet the whole time, but if you look up, you see there’s so much more to see. That’s what EYP facilitates.”

The Perks of the Modified GA Procedure

“The end result is a common effort. And also the re-sult of veeeerrry long discussions.

With the changes we’ve made, I’m hoping to achieve more academic quality and more flowing debates, with good, constructive points. The problem is that usually the debate on a resolution is just resolution bashing, it’s never constructive; or at least hardly ever. We hope that delegates will, instead of just criti-cising a resolution, come up with ideas. Construc-tive questions like “Could you do this?” and “Have

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you thought of this?” Not “How are you going to do this?” – Inconsequential questions. This is why we also have the topic profiles.

Even the attack speeches are no longer called attack speeches, and that’s the point. We want the delegates to outline their position towards the resolution, with arguments, but if you do that you also ideally provide some things for the proposing committee to go on; to build on. We want the resolutions to be built further.”

Hans’ Top Tips for Responding to Points

“The way I do it, to be honest I didn’t do it when I was a delegate, but as a chair – every point that’s made, I try to summarise that in a maximum of 6 words, and write it down. That’s also what I do when I chair a debate. And then you know what you can address, and you get to a more abstract level where you don’t just respond to details, and respond to the actual is-sue. In terms of “How are you going to do this and that” questions, I would respond by asking, “dear del-egate who made the point, if you have a good idea, you’re more than welcome to share.” That’s obviously very arrogant, and you obviously don’t have to say it like that. I was very arrogant though as a delegate. I had very strong opinions and I didn’t want to com-promise. I changed when I saw similar delegates as a chair. It took me a while but then I started saying, okay, the way he’s acting, I hate it. But I did the same thing [laughs].”

Direct Responses

“As everybody knows, a direct response needs to be a direct response to the last point made. Structure is also important. You need to outline why it’s a direct response, it’s usually a disagreement, using them for agreement is kind of a waste in my opinion unless you have a very influential argument to add. Quickly

recap the point that was made, and then state your response itself.”

On Last Words and Terrible Delegates

“I liked doing the summation speech. Having the last word. In Frankfurt I did the last part of the last summation speech of GA, and I did it well. That’s the thing, as a delegate I absolutely was not a team player, it was all “me, me, me.” When I did the Summation speech well, it helped the resolution and it helped the team, but that was inconsequential, it was my time to shine. That’s the way I was as a delegate. I hope I’ll make my presidential speech better. Becoming an official helped me become more of a team player, especially being an organiser and a Head Organiser. Then you really see how a team works, and you re-ally have to work together. In other roles you work individually for a long time but as an organiser you can’t do that.”

Final Question: What Outfit Should We Make for the Paper Doll Hans?

“Caveman. I didn’t even have to think about that. It’s always been that.”

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AFET II“Who´s next on Vladimir Putin´s Blacklist of

Annexation?”

“What is the Kremlin´s endgame? A new Soviet Un-ion?”

“How are the EU and NATO going to respond to in-creasing Russian influences in Eastern Europe?”

Speculative questions on the topic of Russia and Rus-sian impact on long-term European security exem-plified by those above have been flooding the head-lines of every political news outlet in Europe since the Crimean crisis. European citizens are concerned about the safety of the EU’s borders and Russian ag-gravation, and so are the AFET II delegates.

However, the brilliant AFET II greatly distinguishes itself from the majority of squabbling political com-mentators in Europe: the team comes to Poděbrady with the intention and determination to solve the cri-sis once and for all in whatever pain and torture.

First and foremost, what exactly with this dire geo-political crisis is AFET II concerned with? The an-swer is Transnistria.

Transnistria is a narrow strip of Moldova bordering Ukraine, de facto independent from Moldova since 1990, and closely tied to the Russian Federation. In spite of Transnistrian will, no United Nations mem-ber state recognizes it as a country, but rather con-siders it as an autonomous region of the Republic of Moldova.

Due to its proximity to the rest of Eastern Europe and the Black Sea, Transnistria possesses high levels of geopolitical significance. However, the European Court of Human Rights considers the breakaway state "under the effective authority or at least decisive influence of Russia", due to the active presence of the Russian 14th army in the region.

As a result of Russia´s de facto control of the port of the Black Sea, Crimea, Vladimir Putin´s interest in this strategically important region has undoubtedly increased.

However, the EU, NATO and the US are currently paying very limited attention to Russian influences in Transnistria. They only send observers to OSCE talks with Transnistria. In addition, the EU´s ENP (European Neighborhood Policy – working for clos-er ties with EU neighbors) only concentrates on The Republic of Moldova, thereby not including Transn-istria in the discussions.

The key to approach this problem is to evaluate the interests of different stakeholders. The committee analyzed the current status and interests of Transn-istria, Russia, Ukraine and EU. Quoting chair Joshua, “this really helped them establish the factual base line so that they won´t fall below this standard in deeper discussions tomorrow.”

On the second day of CW, AFET II started with the existing problems in this situation. As a result of the status-quo-analysis on the previous day, the discus-

Peter Wang Hjemdahl (NO)

Notes:

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After its annexation of Crimea in March 2014, there are now growing signals of the Russian Federation turning its attention to Transnistria to repeat the process. In light of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), what should be the stance of

the EU vis-à-vis the Russian Federation in this impending foreign relations affair?

sion was inclusive, productive and creative. Led by Joshua´s “statement-proof-pain-and-torture” philos-ophy, the delegates identified a total of four dimen-sions of the issue as a whole: trade relations, social instability, power balance and geopolitical unbal-ance. Many sub-statements under these dimensions were both raised by the team and proved by credible sources. In the end, the committee wrote the Intro-ductory Clauses based on the problem-analysis.

Ultimately, from my personal aspect, I was fascinated by the progress AFET II made – it is not inconceiv-

able that AFET II is the committee that has reached furthest among all. After all, AFET II is the problem-fixer* and the future of European politics.

* Organisers, if you couldn’t find us in our committee room tomorrow, it´s because we are done with the resolution and off to Transnistria to buy 500-euro-tanks to invade the session.

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Building inclusive societies and addressing discrimination: How should the EU tackle growing discrepancies in attitudes presented by far-right and far-left par-

ties recently elected to the European Parliament towards civil rights such as race, religion and sexuality in an increasingly diversifying Europe?

“Human rights are a huge thing.”

Discrimination, civil rights, diversity, Europe, eu-roscepticism – coming into our DROI committee room, these would be the words you would be most likely to hear (besides the big issue of dolphins Dan-iel mentioned). You would be the witnesses to a pas-sionate debate about addressing discrimination in the best possible way. Alexandra, Anežka, Michele, Magda, Menelaos, Sara, Liesbeth, Felipe, Elizabeth, Daniel, Victoria and Era have been determined to identify the problems and courageous to discover the solutions to this issue.

DROI dealt with a topic about building inclusive soci-eties and confronting the fact of the EU citizens’ dis-appointment after the European Parliament elections in May. This disappointment was due to the increase of far-right and far-left parties’ representatives lead-ing to the increase of euroscepticism. For instance, in Denmark the far-right Danish People’s party won nearly 27% of votes and in France the National Front 25% of votes. In Greece far-left party Syriza gained 27% of all the votes and the far-right Golden Dawn almost 10%. The situation is rapidly leading to the mistrust in politicians and to the decrease of EP elec-tions participation.

“There needs to be more protection within Eu-rope.”

Steps towards higher im-plementation of human rights within the Europe-an Union are continually presented. For example the Lisbon treaty in the year 2009, which made the EU Charter of Fun-damental Rights legally

binding. The Charter has been referred to on numer-ous occasions by the European Court of Justice, and now operates as the primary source of human rights in the EU. This has become one of the most signifi-cant areas of EU law which has had, and continues to have, a crucial impact on the EU’s relationships with its Member States and border countries. Even though human rights are gaining solid ground within the European Union every year, recession, austerity and unemployment fan the flames of reactionary move-ments, and dissatisfied people find an enemy to rally against.

“I think diversity is one of the standards of Eu-rope.”

A key issue DROI iden-tified is the dilemma of freedom of speech, when it is used to express hate. Although people have a right to say these things, DROI feels extreme par-ties are abusing those rights. The possibility of legislating specifical-

In the case of extremist parties, I admit that it is a good thing that the EP does not receive a lot of media coverage, but obvi-ously some of them are quite outspoken; they have people like Le Pen, Farage and

Wilders in there, they are very charismatic, popular and outspoken, and they are defi-nitely able to turn the general sentiment about the European Parliament and gen-

eral institutions even more to the negative.

Notes:

19

DROIly in this area was raised, to create laws targeted at the growth of radical parties, but it was decided the problem truly lies with the loopholes and problems with the existing laws.

If those problems were fixed and the loopholes closed, DROI thought, the problem of abuse of freedom of speech might resolve itself. It opens further questions of how we define acceptable free speech, and how we can differentiate between the political dissent which

is vital for a healthy democracy, and what we consider to be hate speech or populist propaganda. Being an extremist does not exempt someone from having a valid problem, and it does not necessarily invalidate their criticisms, but DROI felt that extremist parties want to solve problems in the wrong way. The prob-lem of fixing our legislation is actually a very funda-mental issue about how we define what we consider acceptable in our society, and we have to be careful to make sure we progress down the right path.

Aneta Fortelková (CZ)

20

ECON Ann-Sophie Vandommele (BE)

“Are we finished? The answer is no.” said the pres-ident of the European Central Bank, Mario

Draghi, on the 5th of June when he announced the unconventional measures the ECB will take to fight low inflation levels and the threat of deflation. The inflation rate continues to reach new lows as it re-mains in the ‘danger zone’, below 1%, since Octo-ber last year, well below the inflation target the ECB maintains.

As the EU is slowly recovering from the economic crisis, it now faces yet another challenge of diminish-ing growth rates, partly due to a dragging economic recovery. The prolonged period of low inflation, pro-jected to remain low until after 2016, greatly adds to

the dragging weight. Christine Lagarde, president of the IMF, has congratulated the economic recovery with the EU treading out of recession, but also warns of a vicious cycle in which "persistently high unem-ployment and high debt-to-GDP ratios jeopardise investment and lower future growth." She continues to say that the ECB should strive to work on its price stability objective, defined as an inflation rate of close to, but just below 2%.

As mentioned, on the 5th of June, Draghi announced a package of unconventional measures which includ-ed further cuts to its interest rates, a central bank’s primary tool in stabilizing volatile price changes, and a negative deposit rate of 0.1% in order to recapitalise parts of the economy and stimulate lending by banks. Next to that, the ECB also opened a 400 billion euro liquidity channel for bank lending and said it would look into an asset purchase plan. Should there be a need to; Draghi indicated that policy makers are willing to act again, which may suggest quantitative easing is a serious consideration.

Beyond monetary policy concerned with price sta-bility, there have been significant reforms to the Member States’ fiscal policies too with a strong focus on reducing government deficits, especially in hard hit countries like Greece, Portugal and Ireland. With a reform of the Stability and Growth Pact in 2011, a new era of economic governance was introduced. It has proven difficult though to balance the fiscal policy of individual EU Member States and accom-modate their needs. This is something the Commit-tee of Economic and Monetary Affairs quickly iden-tified and included in their discussion on a topic of a highly practical nature, and with regards to growth and stability the issue is threefold; a prolonged pe-riod of low inflation, the stimulation of growth, and ensuring stability in both monetary and fiscal policy.

Notes:

21

Diminishing growth rates of the economy and threat of deflation suggested by macroeconomic projections: What should the EU do to further stimulate economic

growth and stability in the Eurozone area whilst taking the recently announced measures by the ECB into account?

As opposed to brainstorming the problems, after al-ready extensively researching before the session, the committee’s chair decided to have them research the problems following five areas. This way the commit-tee came up with trending problems which develop on a daily basis. This allowed them to clearly iden-tify all relevant aspects and back this by numbers, figures, and examples. To name a few, Christoph found a correlation between falling prices in energy sectors and the decreasing inflation rate as it consti-tutes around 10% of the number. Tomas mentioned the impact of negative projections on bank lending which restricts investments and growth, and the dif-ferences between different Member States. Anna on her turn found that the strong euro currency had a negative effect on the competitiveness of a few Mem-ber States when it came to export. It is not without reason that she found a corresponding decrease in EU export to third countries.

Doing their research, they were of course bound to come across solutions as well, or case studies from the past e.g. Japan and the US. Some of the most cre-ative solutions were to approach the overcapacity in manufacturing sectors by following the Pareto prin-ciple (increasing efficiency and revenue by focusing on the 20% of employees which generate 80% of rev-enue). To combat weak export in troubled Member

States, they looked into the option of internal devalu-ation since a general devaluation of the euro is not an option, considering the needs of individual Member States. The committee is well on their way to produc-ing a highly academic and very interesting resolu-tion. Hearing them tackle this topic got me very ex-cited about the issues they are facing and they seem very knowledgeable. I genuinely cannot wait to see what they come up with!

As a youngster I feel like I’m going to be the one who has to solve this, but the cur-

rent politicians keep pushing it away so we can keep living in this unreal world; it’s unreal because we pay for everyone with

money we don’t have.

22

The sky needs a limit: with ever-rising global aviation emissions and ETS require-ments being suspended for flights to and from non-European countries until 2016, what measures should the EU take to decrease aviation emissions and to ensure

this happens on a global level?

For the people from ITRE, committee work start-ed earlier than expected. On the plane to Prague

they started daydreaming about how to tackle their issue. The solution was easy. Less flying meant less pollution. Problem solved, you would say. But how did they get to Prague otherwise? To take a bicycle was not an option. Brain teasing material.

Aviation is defined as transport of both people and goods. The amount flights increases exponentially every year, and obviously so does the air pollution. To limit these negative phenomena the ETS-mechanism was invented according to the polluter pays princi-ple. Basically, another tax that allows you to pollute as much as you pay. But there was one difficulty, only the EU was fond of the idea to include aviation into the ETS-mechanism.

Hereby, the EU shoots itself in the foot with only applying the ETS-restrictions to European airlines. It looks like the EU applies bully-sanc-tions, instead of creating advantages for their Member States and airlines. All for the greater good of saving the environment and the health of its citi-zens.

However, the clue is that the quality of the environment is a global issue. As long as there is not a common sense or shared goal between all states to undertake steps or at least a majority, a unilateral policy will be a drawback. This is how things go when it comes to global issues, especially when we talk about the Climate Change topic. Not only is not everyone convinced of global warming and the negative effects of pollution, but most of the time the issue is far from the top of the agenda. And if you stand alone on global matters, nothing will move.

The EU tries to stimulate mobilisation of its citizens and particularly young people and students. You only have to think of Erasmus+ or the opening of the bor-ders between the Schengen countries. Travelling was never as easy as it is nowadays. Isn’t it contradictory to promote going abroad, but increase the taxes to do so? Although differential taxes can be a solution not to harm students or working people, but rather tax the people who can afford holidays anyway.

In the meanwhile the atmosphere in the committee room of ITRE was enjoyable, in contradiction to all the problems listed during the first hours. The gen-eral idea I heard was raising flight fares due to addi-tional taxes. But Doris stated cleverly ‘some airlines

also take advantages from ETS’ and Adrian opined ‘ETS harms the low cost airlines the most, when regular airlines pass the costs to the custom-ers’. ITRE also touched the point of 3rd countries questioning the reliabil-ity of ETS because it is the only one of its kind.

Katie concluded ‘European airlines are increasing the fares due to the ETS system, non-European airlines don’t have to’ but that ‘the increasing of fares is actually not a bad thing. Avia-tion is so harmful for the environment that there is no need to encourage fly-ing by offering cheap flights.’ A noble and green thought, maybe even a bit naïve but that is something you can

say about the environment policy from the EU too. If you look closer at the point of view, you can only conclude that it is more worthwhile to think idealis-tically instead of too pessimistically. Hereby, I plead for a more enthusiastic and convincing way of taking measures on a political level about environmental is-sues.

I think the ETS could be a good system to deal with emis-sions; in general,

not just aviation. But currently it doesn’t work. I think there should be a cap on

the amount of allow-ances.

Notes:

23

ITREBut there was more than complaining in the commit-tee room, also some problem solving happened al-ready. ‘Transport by train can be a proper alternative for aviation, especially inside Europe’ claimed Kasper.

Other and more effective solutions that the commit-tee came up with, you can read in their splendid reso-lution. A piece worth reading!

What is the ETS?

The European Union Emission Trading Scheme contains regulations about emis-sions of installations, factories and also traffic including aviation. First a limit of an-nual greenhouse gas emissions was de-termined. Every country can’t emit more than this cap. If it will not reach the set goals, it need to buy certificate from coun-tries that pollute less than the certificates they have to pollute. This is called Joint Im-plementation (JI). According to the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) it is also possible to invest in environment-friendly infrastructure of developing countries.

Emission reductions mainly due to reces-sion, not because of ETS-mechanism.

Hannes Rooms (BE)

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