orange magazine 1/2014 - eymd

M A G A Z I N E

Ideas fora Better Europe

european youth pressnetwork of young media makers

2 contentsM A G A Z I N E

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imprintOrange Magazine European Youth Press,

Square de Meeus 25, B-1000 Brussels, Belgium

The articles do not necessarily represent the opinions of the magazine.

Cover and Contents page imagesMartin Hanzel / Ringier Axel Springer Slovakia

Editor-in-ChiefsDobriyana Tropankeva (magazine)

Katarzyna Mortoń (event)

Layout ConceptDobriyana Tropankeva

Tomas LacikaPetri Vanhanen

Additional PhotosMartin Hanzel / Ringier Axel Springer Slovakia

Tomas LacikaPascale Müller

Publicdomainpictures.netFair Trade Finland

CONTENTS

YO! Village

Future of the European Union

Sustainability

Digital Revolution

Youth Unemployment

EYMD on Twitter

Photo Gallery

European Values

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Why report on ideas for a better Europe?

European Youth PressThe European Youth Press (EYP) is a network of young media makers with 26 member organisations, gathering 60,000+ young journalists. EYP strives to promote the

role of youth media and the freedom of press in Europe and beyond. EYP manages projects and events such as the European Youth Media Days, organises seminars and represents young journalists in Europe, publishes Orange Magazine and much more.

Orange magazineOrange Magazine has been created by the European Youth Press (EYP) to provide journalistic education and to support young journalists by giving them room to explore media and current affairs. Young European journalists are immersed in a subject through visiting different countries and producing content that is straight forward and cuts to the heart of the pressing issues of the day. The focus has changed from providing a learning environment to ensuring the highest quality possible while still allowing young journalists the space to practice and develop their professional skills within an enabling and inspiring environment.

It has been almost 70 years since the end of the Second World War, which laid the foundation to the European Union. Though the first goal of the founding members of the EU, peace and freedom from horrors of war, has been achieved, other goals, such as economical prosperity and political stability, are still being called into question. Is the glass half full or half empty? In the EU 'agora' one finds dif-ferent views. Interestingly enough, the role of the media in this public discussion is special. The media inform the citi-zens about EU policies, something which indirectly shapes the EU identity among them. But, do we, as young jour-nalists, intend to enhance awareness of the EU among its citizens? Is it our role and responsibility to strengthen the sense of European belonging? Why, if at all, is it important for young journalists to report on youth events organised by political institutions such as the European Parliament?

When political institutions invite young journalists to report on an event, the risk of confrontation is over-hanging. The interaction between the media and governmental bodies in any healthy democracy is based on the understanding of democratic rules but at times resembles that of a game of cat and mouse. While the purpose of the media is to inform the public sphere, the intention of political institutions is often to create enthusiasm and interest in the bright sides of the EU to journalists and the EU citizenry. Except that in this case both actors, in principle at least, aim for the same: a better future for the society in which they live. A society in which the citizens are well informed about governmental policies and decisions, and where their opinions are voiced loud enough. But does an EU society that identify itself as such actually exist? This question is still being debated and there is no clear answer. Therefore the political institutions of the EU as well as the European media have the difficult task of defining whom exactly to address with their mes-sages and how.

The European Youth Media Days (EYMD) 2014 organised by the European Youth Press and the European Parlia-

ment gathered 120 journalists from all across Europe, and together they cover the activities of the European Youth Event (EYE) in Strasbourg from 9 to 11 May 2014. The event brought together over 5,500 young people between 16 and 30 from all EU member states and beyond to exchange ide-as and discuss their visions of a better Europe. It was organ-ised by the European Parliament in close cooperation with the European Youth Forum (YFJ). This special edition of Or-ange magazine, ''Ideas for a better Europe'', collects the ar-ticles that were written by the invited EYMD journalists. Al-though the European Youth Press has organised the EYMD in collaboration with the European Parliament on several occasions, this was the first time it was organised in this for-mat. Enthusiastically, but not without doubts and concerns we have proceeded with the idea, while continuously ask-ing ourselves all the aforementioned questions and more: Are we simply a part of the political agenda of Euro enthusi-asts? What should be EYP's attitude to youth events organ-ised by the EU, considering that we are a non-profit journal-ists’ organisation and thanks to the funding opportunities that exists within the EU, we are able to organise events and trainings for young journalists around Europe. Then again, who else if not young journalists understand and can relate to the ideas, opinions and fears of youth. Who will better pick up the interesting angles, highlight the good parts and be critical and pay attention to potential fallacies?

As the Union is expanding, and the opportunities for young Europeans are growing with it, youth need to figure out what their Europe will be about. Living in a Europe without walls (figuratively and literally), checkpoints and military conflicts, and the new political reality that this entails, young people need a forum to voice their opinions. The European Youth Event 2014 served as a platform for them to share and dis-cuss their thoughts and whatever they decide, it is up to the media to bring it to the public debate, even if at times it means asking more questions than giving answers. If we, as journalists, can contribute to voicing their opinions this game of cat and mouse might just be worth playing. g

Text by Katarzyna MortońThe European Youth Press Board and EYMD2014 coordinator

Contents and Editorial

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In the picture: Carl Fridh Kleberg and Rebecca Bengtsson

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If you want the interest of young peo-ple, talk to them about the online en-vironment, spying, and the NSA. That proved to be true during a very intense discussion entitled ‘Eagle Eye - Big Data Under Control?’ The discussion took place on 10 May 2014 as part of the European Youth Event at the Euro-pean Parliament in Strasbourg, France.

The issue of big data was discussed by three panellists; Joe McNamee, Ex-ecutive Director of European Digital Rights (EDRi), Leonardo Cervera Navas, Head of unit, European Data Protec-tion Supervisor, and Carl Fridh Kleberg, an international news reporter at the Swedish news agency TT. Moderating the discussion was freelance journalist Rebecca Bengtsson.

What is Big Data?According to Tim Adams of The Guard-ian, Big Data is “that amalgam of all that we and our fellow digital citizens do online, the gigabyte human traces we bequeath second by second to ma-chines.”

From Big Brother to Big DataVery often, discussions regarding on-line privacy revolve around George Orwell and his possibly prophetic novel, 1984. McNamee drew a paral-lel between the reality in Orwell’s text

and the realities of today, showing a picture of the author and asking “Dear America, did you not read my book?”

What are the problems with Big Data?In a few words, the main problem is that people can never be sure how their digital data is, and will be, used, and this came to be an important topic during the panel discussion. There is startling evidence that you could learn much more about people from what they have shared online than previ-ously thought. McNamee cited surveys showing that, using Facebook, it is pos-sible to find out what a person’s gender is, whether they smoke, and even if their parents were still together when they were 21. You could even figure out who’s going to break up with their significant other, purely by looking at what pictures they post. There may be companies and agencies that know more about you than you do.

A major conclusion of the discussion was that Big Data is a kind of new cur-rency that people use to pay for the services they require; e.g. they use an e-mail or social media service for free, but they hand over their personal data in exchange. As Kleberg said, “You don’t pay for things on the Internet because you are not the customer, you are the product.”

Another conclusion was that it is very hard to participate in social media and at the same time avoid being “watched”. Private companies and intelligence agencies are almost certain to use your data. As Kleberg said, “information is traded, and this is a central part of what intelligence agencies do.”

Possible solutions?There are, however, things that can be done in order to strike some kind of bal-ance between the minimum require-ment of data sharing (for national secu-rity reasons, for example) and personal privacy. Navas said that “We need to cre-ate a data collection culture among the people responsible for these develop-ments.”

There is also the role of legislation and, more specifically, the EU. “Stronger legis-lation on data protection is good as long as it is harmonised in all the EU” - these are the words of Commissioner Viviane Reding, quoted by Navas. Another an-gle to this was the position, expressed by Navas, that “whatever Europe adopts on data protection would have to be a standard for Google.” This is another focus that presents a discussion in it-self - the complex relationship between the US and Europe regarding issues like data protection, anti-terrorism actions, surveillance, and personal privacy. g

Big Brother Exists. You Do Not.Was 1984 a dystopia or a prophecy?Text by Slavena ZaharievaPicture by Tomas Lacika

Digital Revolution

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Access to the Internet as a Newly Developed Human

RightText by Klara Sommerova and Hung Ming Shen, Small picture by Klara Sommerova,Main picture by Charles Rondeau / Publicdomainpictures.net


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“What are your ideas and visions for positively influencing the digi-tal revolution, thereby creating a better Europe?” The question was raised, and ideas from young people were gathered, during the European Youth Event on 10 May 2014. Ste-phen Clark, Director of the Directo-rate for Relations with Citizens and Directorate-General for Communi-cation, hosted the active discussion and exchanged ideas regarding the security of data privacy as well as technology education, focusing on the widely discussed and influential concept of ‘Digital Revolution’. An ex-clusive interview with Stephen Clark was conducted after the programme.

What would you choose as the main concern of the participants of the Ideas Lab when dealing with digital revolution?“Well, the problem of online security as well as privacy has been brought to my attention, and particularly the role that the European Union is ac-tually playing in such matters. The participants thought that the Union did not really have a response and it needed its own clear structure and concrete approach. Some people suggested: ‘Let’s have an interna-tional web police; let’s have inter-national criminal code; let’s have an international bill of rights.’ That took us into the area of how far do you re-ally want to go with the regulation, traceability of people, data storage, etc. From my point of view these are all issues that we have to deal with as Europeans.”

As you mentioned the bill of rights on the Internet, do you think they actually acknowledged the fact that the criminal law in each state has its own unique aspects, and it would be quite challenging to find a balance of criminal law on the European level? “I was pleasantly surprised by their awareness that, for example, crimi-nal law differs from country to coun-

try. But the truth is the Internet does not have borders and, for the partici-pants, the way to overcome that is really the creation of certain rules on the European level. For them it is a dangerous matter.”

What about some other issues?“Education was also discussed, which I thought was a very good point. How can we intelligently exploit the inter-net? How can we know what is good or bad information? These are things that should be taught to school kids from first grade. From my point of view, it is one of the most important life skills people need to have right now.”

Do you think that there is a vis-ible and growing gap between the younger and older generation when it comes to use of the Internet? Clearly, we have to educate our kids about their online behaviour, but what about older people? “To be honest, I am less pessimistic about the older generation than I am about the younger one. There is definitely a generational difference with the people that grow up with-out computers, since they do not know how to use them. On the other hand, that does not mean that they are incapable of learning. But, seeing as you mention this, we came across such issues in my own work in terms of cultural differences. Also, dur-ing elections we produce different material, which older people some-times do not get. On the contrary, the younger generation love the as-pects of our communication strate-gies. You have to be really aware of who your target group is. Close to this topic, the group also discussed the idea of access to the internet as a human right.”

It seems to me to be a rather expen-sive and exclusive right.“Exactly, but how expensive is it? In many parts of Africa, the mobile net-works are much more sophisticated

and more advanced than the ones in Europe or even North American countries.”

You also mentioned the political process and the use of new tech-nologies; tell us more about that.“There was this feeling that the tra-ditional forms of democracy that we have seem to be at a distance from the real world in terms of new digi-tal technology. We managed to talk about the countries like Estonia, where they have online voting, and in fact they achieve something very spectacular. But it also creates an ad-vantage for the people who are able to use technology effectively, while it might exclude others - so there is some sort of elitism coming through.”

Do you think that the whole process of elections or campaigns actually changed because of digital technol-ogies - social media and so on? “ It has been going on for some time now; from the Obama campaign in 2008 in particular, although you can trace it even further back. We have seen in the European context it start-ing to coming through in the French presidential election, as well as in the European parliament elections. For instance, there was a video launched two days ago (8 May 2014), which has acquired 1.5 million views already. That is incredibly powerful. It is also a trend that will not go away, and of course the power of online media and technology, especially for politi-cal players, is extremely valuable.” g

In the picture: Stephen Clark

Digital Revolution

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Data Protection: Between Politics and Economics


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Since the whistle-blower Edward Snowden revealed the NSA surveil-lance scandal in June 2013, the issue of data protection has been widely discussed on various levels. Several proposals have been put forward to the European Commission in an at-tempt to initiate a data protection reform by the end of the year. The proposals call for more rights for citi-zens to have their data deleted, and to have greater access to their own data.

The NSA scandal has proven to be a politically sensitive issue. While some European leaders have been push-ing for a strong and cohesive political response to the United States, devel-opments on both national and inter-national levels reflect rather different tendencies. For instance, despite the EU’s rhetoric, which mainly supports the privacy rights of European citi-

zens, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, as well as other European countries, have themselves been carrying out mass surveillance pro-grammes. The implications of the NSA scandal might also be overshadowed by the economic interests of both the EU and the US, as increasing eco-nomic cooperation in the form of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is favourable on both sides of the Atlantic.

On 12 March 2014, the EP voted in fa-vour of the European Commission’s proposal for Data Protection Regula-tion, with a total of 621 members vot-ing in favour and 10 against. The major question that emerged following the scandal was; “How do we preserve pri-vacy while still allowing authorities to do their job?” Surveillance cameras and monitoring do help to fight terrorism, as was the case in the recent Boston Bombing; however, a study in the UK showed that such cameras have little impact on the overall crime rate.

Within the European Parliament, MEPs discussed the EU-US deal known as ‘Safe Harbour’, an agree-ment that aims to bridge the dif-ferences between the EU and the US regarding data protection and to ensure the protection of EU citi-zens while they are in the US. The commission has threatened to sus-pend the deal, stressing that the US needs to provide reports and expla-nations.

Although many would agree with the need for more data protection, some amendments in legislation may lead to businesses being im-pacted. E-commerce represents a vital part of the European economy, and its prevalence has increased significantly year after year. Online tracking has completely changed the online consumer’s direction, with more targeted marketing tak-ing place. Therefore, data protec-tion clauses may have stricter limi-tations for collection and usage. g

Text by Therese Bonnice, Inês Rocha andEdvardas Pocius, Picture by Inês Rocha

Digital Revolution

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“Social media has transformed conflict reporting; the ones involved communicate themselves”, says Olivier Basille, Director of the EU Permanent Representation of Reporters Without Borders, at the panel called ‘Courage in human rights’.

The fact that the hashtag #EYEstream was displayed on a screen during the session, and that many questions on Twitter were picked up by the session moderator Stephen Clark, also underlines the relevance of social media. On that note, let’s see what Twitter had to say during the session:

Courage in Human Rights

Text by Lisa Zeller, Picture byJaime Gisbert / publicdomainpictures.net


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Press Freedom Barometer 201417 journalists killed

10 netizens and citizen journalists killed

174 journalists imprisoned166 netizens imprisoned

Source: Reporters Without Borders

Olivier Basille of Reporters Without Bor-ders used these figures as an introduc-tion to the panel on 'Courage in Human Rights' at the European Youth Event 2014 in Strasbourg, which featured hu-man rights activists Kirill Koroteev and Stephen Clark as moderators. The cases listed above all happened in countries outside of the European Union. But Basille also made it clear that you do not need to look abroad to find hu-man rights violations; in global rank-ings, more than half of European coun-tries are placed in the middle – a fact that was also picked up on Twitter:

Rutger Schuil twitterbird@rutgerjsIn most of the EU freedom of speech and journalism is in the middle in comparison to the world. We need to do better #EYE2014 #EYEstream5:24 PM - 9 May 2014

In this context, very critical tweets came in:

Christine Cooreman twitterbird@chriscooreman@rmeilak @EUWatchers @JeanRoatta They are violating human rights themselves!!4:54 PM - 9 May 2014

The biggest Twitter reaction came when Basille roundly criticised the way in which European countries dealt with the Snowden affair. In his opinion, there was a lack of courage among the EU member states to act: "He found safe haven in Pu-tin's Russia. We have to ask ourselves; what signal are we sending to the world? We weren't interested in the individual who provided us with important information."

Picking up on the courage aspect, the question was raised if Russia simply had the nerve that EU member states were lacking, or whether there were strategic motives:

Alina Apine twitterbird@aliina_apine Huge lack of courage on behalf of the EU in the case of Snowden. #EYEStream5:47 PM - 9 May 2014

Like Basille, they criticised the EU's pas-sivity regarding this issue.

The official twitter account of European Youth Event asked the Twitter community:

EUwatch Info Hub twitterbird@EUWatchers@marinepasavril it’s not even courage from Russia it’s #Strategy & #media impact, lack of EU response is no good excuse neither #EYE-stream4:54 PM - 9 May 2014

On human rights activism in RussiaAs can be seen, the topic that was picked up most on Twitter was the Snowden affair.

EUwatch Info Hub twitterbird@EUWatchers@EP_YouthEvent Sanctions didn’t impeach a contemporary genocide in #Syria & elsewhere time to revisit this notion perhaps ? #EYEstream5:02 PM - 9 May 2014

The attendees also had the chance to ask questions themselves. Most of the offline questions were directed to Kirill Koroteev, who has worked with the Memorial Human Rights Centre in Mos-cow, which received the Sakharov Prize in 2009. "Is it difficult to be a human rights activist in Russia?", one partici-pant in the audience asked. Koroteev responded: "There is a lot that must be done in Russia for human rights activ-ists," and continued; "none of us asks for things to be easy. We have to work with the means and under the conditions we are given." When he was asked "What can people do for Russia?", he had a simple answer; "one way would be to learn Russian." To Koroteev, this is the best way to stay in-formed in a non-biased manner, and to be able to engage in discussions. g

European Values

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What Is Your Opinion on Immigration?


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Text by Irina Bernebring Journiette and Katherine Rydlink, Pictures by Katherine Rydlink

Jasper Van Herzede, 26, Belgium1. It was a very nice and interesting event, and I thought that the panel was very good, especially the personal expe-rience, the immigration story, was very touching.

2. There is no such thing as one opinion to state in one minute. But we should stay human, that is the most important thing I think.

Sofia Valenti, 28, Italy1. I found the debate really interesting. Well, I am from Italia, living very close to Lampedusa, so I am very close to the topic and I deal with it every day.

2. I think single member states are un-able to solve the situation on their own - Europe has to act as a whole. The EU has to invest far more in humanitarian aid.

Agata Russo, 22, Italy1. I really enjoyed it, I really appreciated the story. There was a slight lack of space for debate, but apart from that it was re-ally interesting.

2. That there is a lot to do. I’m not sure regarding actual implementation, but I think immigration is valuable for Europe.

Questions: 1.What did you think of the event ‘On the search for a better life in Europe’?2. What is your opinion on immigration?

European Values

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An Internet Police Could Make Problems Worse

Cyber bullying and online hate speech are serious issues that can’t be solved in a hurry. Experts and young Europe-ans agree that more awareness and better education is needed. However, the idea of an Internet police, or more regulation, is still a controversial topic.

“Has anyone here ever been victim of hate speech on the Internet?”, asks the moderator of today’s debate on online hate speech, László Földi.

More than 10 people in the audience raise their hands, while the others are silent. Földi starts the session with ques-tions put to the 100 participants, to see how they feel about cyber bullying.

The workshop is entitled ‘Human Rights on the internet - No hate, please!’, and involves a panel of ac-tivists associated with the No Hate Speech campaign who have gathered to discuss the issue. “Young people want such a project. Research shows that 78% state that they have encoun-tered hate speech online. Most of them were very upset. But at the same time, they didn’t have a clue what to do about it”, states Sergio Belfor. “The majority of people are bystanders, we simply don’t do anything. Sometimes we are not even aware that our words insult others”, he says.

Belfor is a member of the Advisory Council on Youth, and has worked

with the No Hate Speech movement for a while. At first, he didn’t consider online hate to be a great problem, but when he started working in the field he began to think differently. As an ex-ample, he mentions a meeting with a young woman who had been the vic-tim of cyber bullying and said that she was now “tired of living” and afraid to leave the house.

Strong and clear actionsIt is Belfor’s experience that a lot of people don’t know how to report it when they see hateful messages on Fa-cebook or Twitter, and that they there-fore need training in how to react.

“We have to make at least some at-tempts to create clear rules for social media. They aren’t clear enough, and by clarifying we can make a difference. We need strong and clear actions”, he says.

Some among the panel and the audi-ence feel positive regarding regula-tion of discussions on social media, while others are concerned about the creation of some sort of internet po-lice. “I am all for free speech”, blogger and expert on human rights educa-tion, Ellie Keen, says. Jan Dabkowski, activist and national coordinator of the No Hate Speech Movement in Poland, agrees: “We are not here to ban something, but to understand diversity, to make people aware that

freedom isn’t freedom to abuse”, Dab-kowski says.

Don’t push people downA young man raises his hand and says that the Internet is an important plat-form for the exchange of opinions, and a place for being broad-minded. Therefore, he stresses the importance of keeping it free and transparent.

“In many countries without freedom of expression, the internet is the last place where you can be anonymous and express your views”, he says.

Bridget O’Loughlin is the campaign coordinator for the No Hate Speech movement from The Council of Eu-rope. She agrees that it can be dan-gerous to make too many regulations, and that doing so risks the rise of an “internet police force”.

“You push people underground, and they will be even more dangerous underground. The only way to do it is through awareness. We have to be careful with regulation, because it can just push the problems to a level where we can’t see them”, she says. Keen states that “there are plenty of other ways to combat hate speech.” She herself deals with hate speech differently every time: “I suggest look-ing at each case individually and see-ing if it´s best to ban, ignore, report, or respond to it.” g

Text by Lisa Zeller and Tatiana TillyPicture by Tatiana Tilly

European Values

No Hate Speech – You Have to Be Creative to Attract People

Viktorija Bruzaite (22), coordinator of the No Hate Speech Movement in Lith-uania. She believes that more informa-tion about human rights in the internet is crucial, but that the movement needs to be more creative and active in the real world.

She sits in the back of the room, but is not shy to raise her hand and give her opinion when she has the chance. Viktorija Bruzaite is the coordinator of the Lithuanian group of the “No Hate Speech” movement.

Today she is participating in the “Hu-man Rights in the internet – No hate, please!” workshop about the move-ment. The panel is discussing how you can prevent hate speech, and Vik-torija has something she wants to add, namely the importance of education. We meet her after the workshop, where she elaborates:

“Lithuania is becoming a more global society. We were a closed society for many years, but now I notice more and more people of different backgrounds. But there is no education in human

rights in schools or universities”, she says.

Real life educationTherefore, she thinks young people lack the tools and information to deal with the situation in which their toler-ance is challenged. She underlines that it needs to be done in real life and not only online.

“I think that first of all we should re-ally fight for human rights education in schools, getting the information out there”, the coordinator says.

The “No Hate Speech” campaign is ini-tiated by The Council of Europe and is implemented on EU-, national and lo-cal level. Most of the happenings and information are based on the internet.

However, Viktorija believes that the problems are created in real life and should also be solved in real life.

More creativity neededIn Lithuania, they have therefore added the “Love Panda” to the campaign. “The idea comes from the notion that the

panda is `Black and White and Asian´, which makes you think that the figure cannot be discriminatory at all and on top of that, the animal is so sweet that everybody likes it”.

The panda is the hero of the campaign, who is asking people to share stories of joy with each other both online and of-fline. The campaign is also selling shirts with the panda and a “No hate” mes-sage on them, like the one Viktorija is wearing herself today.

“Right now you can buy these shirts. And it´s just something you wear, but it says `No hate´, which means that peo-ple support the message, even though they don´t necessarily realise it.”

She believes that it’s important that the EU-campaign starts investing more in events and education in real life, and that the people involved try to be m ore creative in order to engage more peo-ple. Another creative example has been implemented by the Portuguese part of the campaign: the “No hate Ninjas” cre-ate videos on Youtube to spread their message. g

Text by Lisa Zeller and Tatiana TillyPicture by Tatiana Tilly

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In the picture: Viktorija Bruzaite

European Values

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The Dark Side of Globalization – Ending Human Trafficking

Young participants of the European Youth Event gathered at the “Dark side of globalization – Ending Human Trafficking” workshop which aimed to discuss the very appalling topic of hu-man trafficking. Although the meeting lasting one hour only was not a seri-ous documentation of the problem, the organizers managed to engage all the young people into the live debate about how to combat the issue.

The first stage of the interactive work-shop called “the act” consisted of short acting scenes prepared by the partici-pants. They presented the common cases of human trafficking such as: sexual exploitation, organ trade and child labor. The second stage “state re-action” aimed to raise awareness of all the young people through the live de-bate with the actors and other partici-pants. The last part “the trial” was the presentation of opinions and solutions to the raised issues.

We talked to Maria Kyprianou about the idea of the interactive workshop about human trafficking:

Do you think that human trafficking is a serious problem in Europe?“Indeed! Human trafficking is nowa-days easier than any time before be-cause of the globalization. The recent research shows that there was an 18% increase of victims of human traffick-ing in the EU between 2008 and 2010.”

It is probably a huge business…“Exactly! Human trafficking has an an-nual value of 39 billion dollars! The biggest corporations in the world do

not operate with such money.”

Are young Europeans capable of doing anything with that issue?“I think that even small steps are mak-ing a change. Tweets, Facebook posts, sharing ideas – it all makes people more aware of the problem. Our aim is to raise awareness, get young people involved and maybe some of them will come out with solutions that they will deliver by social media. And there is a real power in social media today.” g

Text by Joanna Socha, Picture byGeorge Hodan / publicdomainpictures.net

“We believe young Europeans can change the future of Europe. United we can stop human trafficking”– Maria Kyprianou

European Values

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Freedom to Share Your

Ideas

In the picture: Emilia Chehtova


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Text by Tatiana Tilly and Fenne van LoonPicture by Tatiana Tilly

Emilia Chehtova is the team leader of the Bulgarian Team Europe Junior, which organised a game focusing on EU values at the European Youth Event 2014. She has strong ideas about the EU, and thinks that Bulgaria has some important qualities, which it can offer the Union.

Chehtova stands in the middle of the room, about to present a quite unusual game. This is a game about European values, and the participants have to share their own ideas in order to be a part of it.

Chehtova is 25 years old, works as a lecturer of finance at Sofia University, and also volunteers as the team leader of the Bulgarian Team Europe Junior. It takes a lot of time and energy, but she has been looking forward to playing this game with the other young Euro-peans.

“Our major idea here is to take a step and go outside of Bulgaria, because we’re really trying to communicate to the Bulgarians, but we are also trying to find new people. This is the best place to express our ideas and create a dia-logue with others.”

The group was created in 2011 by the European Commission and, ever since she was accepted as a member, Che-htova has been engaged in their activi-ties.

“Being in the heart of Europe means that you can find so many different people, and be united by the idea of working together. And that’s really im-portant for me, that we can really work together, even though we have differ-ences”, she says.

Freedom to moveShe describes herself as being truly Eu-ropean; due to Bulgaria having only be-come a member of the EU in 2007, she has lived in both a member and a non-member state.

After World War II, Bulgaria was con-nected to the USSR, which meant that it was very difficult to travel. Freedom is therefore something that Chehtova cherishes deeply. She believes that the freedoms of speaking your mind, travelling, and studying abroad are the most important benefits of the EU for her generation.

“The freedom means a lot to us, be-cause we got so much more when we became a member of the EU.”

And the fact that young Bulgarians can be more mobile is beneficial for the other member states as well; Bulgarians are, as a nation, “hardworking and intel-ligent”, she says.

Being critical of the politiciansChehtova lived in Brussels for several months while she worked as a trainee

for the European Parliament. The expe-rience gave her more inspiration for her work with the organisation in Bulgaria.

“I saw that people really tried to search for good solutions within the scope of the EU. Not just thinking about how to profit, but searching for good solu-tions. We are not perfect as a union, but at least people are positive and they are trying.”

In general she is very positive towards the Union. However, she thinks that some things could be done better. She mentions the many policies and pro-jects that are initiated by EU institu-tions.

“There are a lot of initiatives, but we should look at which ones are actually useful and contribute in a significant way. I think we should try to be more efficient, this is the most important thing.”

With less than a month until the Eu-ropean elections, she is very hopeful; young people seem to be better in-formed about EU issues, and more criti-cal of the politicians.

“People are also becoming more aware of their rights, so they can be more pushy towards the politicians. I think we should be very critical towards what doesn’t work, so we can find out what actually does.” g

European Values

“Volunteering Is Like a Drug for Me” Text by Irina Bernebring Journiette and Marie Wachinger

Picture by Marie Wachinger

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Justė Marija Simanauskaitė, 16, is from Kaunas, Lithuania. She volunteers at the European Youth Parliament, and talked to us after a debate session at the European Youth Event about her motivations and experiences. What kind of volunteering do you do?“I started when I went into ninth grade, last year. I began looking for opportu-nities to do something in my free time. Actually I don’t know if I can really call it volunteering, but I do a lot of work in politics. I started participating in a model European Parliament, and I’m part of a group of European Youth Par-liament people, where we organise re-gional and national sessions.” Why do you volunteer?“Not only do I get to give something to the people, but I also get some-thing from the experience, like new contacts; I think in the future it will be extremely important to socialise. And when you’re volunteering you’re meet-

ing other people, and maybe in the fu-ture this work will help me. Also, when you send out applications you can tell everyone that you volunteered, but that is not so important to me. I think the experience is the most important thing. Life becomes much more inter-esting when you do something not for money, but for yourself and for others.” In the workshop you mentioned that volunteering is like a drug to you; the more you do it, the more you want to do it.“Yes, I feel the same now as when I did my first volunteer work in ninth grade. Before that, I didn’t do a lot, I was just a lazy child with few ambitions, and then something changed, I thought that I wanted to do something. And I started and I don’t want to stop; as I said, it has become like a drug for me.” You also said that you think that many young people nowadays find money very important, and that they don’t care

very much about volunteering. What do you mean by that?“I have examples, I talk to my friends about our future careers and what we want to be; and I want to be a doctor, I want to be a surgeon, because I want to help people. And yes, money mat-ters, but I think the experience of doing something for others, of doing some-thing big, is actually a big thing. For in-stance, in surgery, and I am considering going into cardiac surgery, you need to put a lot of effort into it. People have said to me: “My father is a surgeon, that’s why I want to be a surgeon too, he makes a lot of money and I think that I will get into his clinic.” I don’t think that’s a good thing, and I think people need to under-stand that thousands of years ago there was no money, it was all about commu-nication. And then money came and it changed us; when people make money their biggest goal, I think that we need to somehow find new ways to remind them about other values, like family and to not be egocentric.” g

In the picture: Justė Marija Simanauskaitė

European Values

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In the picture: Benjamin Busch


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Is EuropeDeaf?Plenty of enthusiastic Europeans gathered in the YO! Globe tent in front of the European Parliament to discuss ideas for a better Europe. This, however, was not a normal meeting.

Dressed in blue and yellow, the leader of the group, Benjamin Busch, stood on the stage and told a story that some of the people could not hear; they could, however, understand, thanks to the interpreter. There were three sign language interpreters pre-sent at the European Youth Event at the European Parliament, and 14 deaf people who came with the European Union of Deaf Youth to discuss ideas for making the Parliament better for disabled representatives.

The main goal of the event was to discuss the marginalisation of deaf people in the European Parliament. “Disabled Europeans are under-rep-resented in public service organisa-tions” was a common opinion of the participants, and they expressed their desire to make the place more wel-coming.

The three most commonly heard pro-posals involved full access to inter-preters for those working in the Par-liament, the creation and availability to all of interpreting programmes and courses, and a change in the law that would allow a deaf person to stand as a member of the EP.

We talked to Benjamin Busch, the group leader of the EUDY at the European Youth Event, about his story.

How did you get involved in the EUDY?“I was active in the deaf organisa-tions for many years, and that is how I become a board member and group leader.”

What is the main goal of the organi-sation?“Too often, deaf people are left out of decision-making processes, and I believe that this should be changed. This is the aim of our organisation – we unite young deaf Europeans, and help them to speak up for themselves and fight for their rights.” g

Text by Joanna SochaPicture by Katharina Walbert

European Values

Discrimination for All

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Text by Maria Ortese and Katherine RydlinkPicture by Tomas Lacika

Barbara Giovanna Bello is the pro-moter of a Europe-wide survey re-garding discrimination, which was developed in cooperation with the European Youth Forum. The aim of the survey is to collect information from people aged between 18 and 35 across Europe, in order to under-stand how discrimination impacts their lives. The survey will be accessi-ble on the Internet until 1 June 2014. The idea behind it is to offer a per-spective for future legislation in the European Union.

One aspect of the survey is that it tries to give a holistic overview of the Eu-ropean situation by covering differ-ent types of discrimination. To make clear what this means, Bello offers an example: One wouldn’t expect it, but there are some areas in which di-rectors employ black men and white women, but not black women. This means that, at first glance, it doesn’t seem that discrimination is going on, as the workforce would appear to be

ethnically diverse. The solution to an issue like this is to look more closely at statistics, to analyse more carefully when people are at risk of discrimina-tion, and to hopefully arrive at prac-tical measures, which may be taken.

Elsa Dworzack (16) from Germany“I was very touched by the letter that the 16-year-old gay Dane sent to the mayor of Copenhagen. [The boy got insulted and beaten up in the mid-dle of the streets of Denmark, just because he showed himself in public with his boyfriend]. I think everybody was. The whole audience sat there quietly and listened, fascinated.”

Jana Thimian (18) from Germany“I have never felt discriminated against, just because of the fact that I’m young and a woman. Many peo-ple feel excluded, even though they aren’t treated badly. For example, migrants often think people look at them differently. But usually it’s not like that at all.”

Sofia (30) from Greece“Before I attended the debate I didn’t really think about multiple discrimination. I think that it was in my mind, but I hadn’t given it a name. I can understand the com-plexity of the topic much better now.”

Valentina (20) from Austria“The way Zara Todd talked about her living circumstances gave me the chance to think about life as a disabled person in a way I never did before - at least not in the sense she does. It is very important to understand how other people feel, because this makes it easier to em-pathise with them.”

Sonia (20) from Austria“The discussion showed that each one of us is able to do something against discrimination - even if it is through small steps […] But every-one should do something!”g

Multiple discrimination survey undertaken by the European Youth Forum


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European Values

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Hate Speech?No Thanks!


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Globalisation, the emergence of new technologies, and social media have all made it possible for an ac-tive flow of hateful content to be published; moreover, this globalisa-tion of technology has been accom-panied by an incremental rise in the number of online hate groups and forums, explains Viktor Szabados, facilitator of the No Hate Speech or-ganisation.

Social networking sites such as Fa-cebook and Twitter are a particular source of concern, as these plat-forms offer spaces in which cy-ber bullying may take place. Huge amounts of racist content is upload-ed every day, generally anonymous-ly, says Ciara Lyden, who is supervis-ing a team of content analysers for Facebook.

“But we also have to identify when something is harmful”, Lyden adds,

and explains that Facebook founds its judgment on its own ‘harm principle’.

Europeans have fought for centuries for freedom of expression, and re-stricting it online is not only a con-tentious task, but also illegal. “But where can the line between hateful speech and actual hate crimes be drawn?”, asks Szabados.

The Council of Europe facilitated the answering of this question by launch-ing the No Hate Speech movement in March 2013. By raising awareness of hate speech online and encouraging young people to react, it is hoped that the movement will diminish the extent of digital hatred.

“Our movement is fighting hate speech on- and offline. We try to educate people and engage them in counter-arguments, or react to hate speech movements”, says Szabados.

With more than 300 people involved at a European level, the movement outreach has increased rapidly in re-cent years.

During the workshop, young partici-pants like Yannick Scheepmeester from Belgium offered suggestions on how to tackle hate speech and hateful content online.

“The aim of No Hate Speech is to educate, but if someone is aggres-sive to me because I am gay, it is not going to change anything. If people are narrow-minded against LGBT people, for example, then they have a bigger problem than I have.” For Yannick, the root of the problem has to be addressed in order to ef-fectively reduce hatred toward mi-norities. But a hope, that things will soon change for the better, is in the air, what with the European elec-tions, says Scheepmeester. g

Text by Letizia Finizio and Laure FourquetPicture by Laure Fourquet

European Values

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50% of European youngsters don’t know how many member states the European Union has, and many are under the impression that Romania and Bulgaria were the last to enter the EU, according to a survey con-ducted by Canterbury Christ Church University. These findings have made students of the British univer-sity draw a conclusion; that the Eu-ropean youth aren’t very interested in the EU or its institutions. By giv-ing simple examples, however, the students holding the workshop have proven that the EU plays a big role in our daily lives, even if we are not aware of it.

In order to make the EU as a sub-ject more appealing to young peo-ple, a group of students from the

Canterbury-based university have come up with different approaches. During their four distinct presenta-tions – Early Education, Languages, Travelling, and Digital Revolution - they have shown the 60 workshop attendees innovative ways to dis-seminate EU-related messages to the young public. A website that would facilitate foreign language learning was one of the ideas put across; this intercultural virtual learning environment would benefit from free resources, like recipes and e-books, and would tighten relations between the 28 nations.

Travelling is a good way of promot-ing the EU as well. “People react to positive memories […] If you just came back from a nice holiday, then you have these, and we are trying to relate them back to the European Union”, says one Canterbury student who is promoting the idea that con-

nection with personal experiences enhances identification with the EU.

“The EU isn’t getting through to young people via social media” say Josh, an Australian studying at the university. A worrying conclusion, given that 75% of young Europeans are present on at least one social network. For example, the Council of the European Union is the institution with the highest number of followers on Facebook – 89,000 - but this fig-ure is quite low, taking into account the fact that there are 250 million Europeans on that social network. Another finding shows that none of the EU institutions have developed a mobile application, and that all of them have a low online presence. So, the last solution presented by the Canterbury students is to create an app-based system, which would in-form young people about what the EU has done for them. g

Young People Educating Young PeopleText and Pictureby Razvan Adrian Carcu


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Future of the EU

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In Malta, there is no great surge of unemployed young people sweeping across the landscape, as is happen-ing in many other southern Europe-an countries, but that may very well change soon. At least that’s the con-cern of Estelle Spiteri, a 21-year-old student from Malta who is attending an event about youth unemployment.

“There is a concern in Malta that the government is not prioritising youth employment, and that there is a chance that there will not be enough jobs for not only the youth, but peo-ple in general. Even though I’m just a

second year student, and I have a few more years ahead of me, it does con-cern me to know that, by the time I graduate, this will have become my problem to deal with. So by coming to this event, I was hoping to hear what goes on in other countries that are ex-periencing, or have experienced, un-employment issues, and either have, or are in the process of, overcoming them.”

Are young people in Malta interest-ed in politics and in voting?“In Malta, people in general are very into politics. You are either with the

Nationalist party or the Labour party, and people feel very strongly about it. But then I look at the youth and, even though they vote, they are not very interested in politics. For exam-ple, with youth unemployment, they think that someone will come along and fix the situation for us - we don’t have to do anything, we just study and get a job.”

A lot of euroscepticism is arising in the EU countries; is that also the case in Malta?“Not anymore, no. We joined the EU ten years ago, and now there isn’t any

“I’m Afraid This Will Become My Problem”

Text and Picturesby Lise Højer


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scepticism really. And if there is, it is probably the very old people who were strongly against Europe and are still sticking to it.”

You said that young people vote, but they are not really interested in politics, and not aware of what is happening. What do think can be done to change that?“I think that what can make people interested in politics is being exposed to it at school; for example, when I was in junior and senior school we didn’t have European Studies. I start-ed in that field last year, but before I

wasn’t interested. I think that intro-ducing these subjects to children at a young age will teach them not just about Maltese history, but the fact that now we are a part of Europe. I guess some kind of European-based subject would be a good initiation.”

Do you have some ideas yourself that you want to discuss with other young people?“Personal ideas of how to fix it? No, not at all. I would like to just learn. In Malta at the moment it is not a real-ity, it is just something that might become a problem. But in other coun-

tries, like Italy, they struggle with it every day. So I would like to hear their first hand experiences, how they deal with it.”

Do you believe that the 5,000 young people who are gathered here in Strasbourg can change things?“Yes, I do believe that. Young people, we are the future, we are the ones who will replace those above us who will eventually have to go. Coming to these events and making sure you keep an eye open and you try and learn a little bit, I think that will come in handy.” g

In the picture: Estelle Spiteri

Future of the EU

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Where can you find the cleanest beaches in the European Union? What European country has the best buses and trams? Which coun-try offers the best hospitality? These are just a few of the questions that the Agros Youth Club of Cyprus asked several young Europeans in Strasbourg during the European Youth Event.

We followed in their footsteps, also asking people about their prefer-ences. And it seems our interviewees have one thing in common – if they had to pick a restaurant to eat at tonight, it would be in Italy, and pizza would have to be on the menu. Beyond that, opinions are as diverse as Europe itself.

1. Which country would you choose to go to for dinner today?

2. In which country would you like to spend a two-week vacation?

3. Where would you study or work?

4. What would you import to your country from somewhere else?

5. What is the thing you would like to export from your own country?

European Diversity Comes After PizzaText and Picturesby Guilherme Correia Da Silva

Hans, Netherlands, 251. I would go to an Italian restaurant, of course. They have nice pizza - and the famous pasta.

2. I think I would go to Spain. They have some interesting cities, especially Bar-celona, with all the Gaudí buildings and nice beaches.

3. Germany, because they have a lot of interesting jobs, especially related to in-novation.

4. I would import the sunshine from Spain, Italy, or Greece. I live in the Neth-erlands and it is usually rainy or cloudy.

5. I just heard in the interactive game at EYE that we are the country with the happiest people, so I think we could ex-port our happiness to other countries.


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Sophie, Hungary, 231. Italy, of course. They have the most amazing food there. And if I could choose a particular city, it would be Na-ples, because of their pizza.

2. Maybe Ireland. I love the country, it is really magical to me; full of green places, and people are really nice there.

3. France. I love the language, and I like the people and the cuisine.

4. Positive attitude, 100 per cent smiles – it doesn’t matter where that comes from. Hungarian people are sometimes really pessimistic, often without a good reason. So I would love to change that.

5. I just answered, I think. I would ex-port pessimism – to space.

Pavlina, Bulgaria, 231. Definitely Italy. I love their food. But possibly also Bulgaria.

2. That’s a really good question. I’d say almost anywhere - but maybe Croatia or Greece.

3. In Germany. Their education system is great, and there’s also a good quality of living.

4. German politicians think about their citizens and do what the people want. I would probably import that to my country, because our government is not listening to its people. We had pro-tests in Bulgaria around six months ago – 200 thousand people took part – and it seemed that they didn’t even care.

5. The cheese and rakia, the national al-coholic drink. Our cuisine is really good, so I would definitely export that.

Cem, Turkey, 241. We are students, so I would just try to find something cheap; it doesn’t really matter where – maybe a kebab.

2. Macedonia, Lithuania, Latvia... Many people don’t notice the value of those countries, or don’t really care about them. People always think about Ger-many, France, or Spain. I would like to go to smaller countries.

3. In one of the northern European countries (if not in Canada or the USA), because there is a high quality of edu-cation there.

4. The German hard-working mental-ity, because sometimes we can be a bit lazy.

5. The hospitality.

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Why the European Youth Pegs at Lobbyists?

Ropes, boxes and balls… Almost as in a circus, young people from all over Europe were involved in different games concerning the lobbyist issues in the second day of the European Youth Event 2014.

Next generation gathered to an in-

teractive workshop organized by The Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU), which reveals the darks side of lob-bying. Concerned with the increasing influence exerted by corporate lobby-ists on the policy-making in Europe and the deterioration of democracy,

young initiative people were giving feedback on cases of negative lob-bying and “pulling the strings”. At the same time, in different types of ob-stacle races the youths were trying to reach a box from where they were picking questions and brief informa-tion related to the sphere of lobbyism.

Text by Diana YordanovaPicture by Robert Schmidt


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Unexpectedly, one of the games tasks consisted of throwing balls at boxes with photos of international lobbyist, drew the attention of the youth. The “pyramid” was built with the images of European Union (EU) lobbyists such as Charlie McCreevy (Internal Market Commissioner), Lakshmi Mittal (an In-dian steel magnate), and Peter Terium (CEO of the executive board of one of Europe’s leading electricity and gas companies, RWE).

Meadhbh Bolger, the 25-year-old Irish girl monitoring the game, was in charge of providing information on the diverse problems surrounding

lobbyism, such as gas emissions and data protection. The young activist gave arguments on why all citizens of the 28 Member States needed to sign a petition in which the newly elected are to promise that they will stand-up against the large lobbying corpora-tions, and that they won’t allow it to influence their policy-making in the EU. In Ireland alone, over half of the candidates have already signed the pledge, which is “a step forward,” adds Meadbhb.

The most active players who took part in every activity were two Croa-tians: Ivan Bambir, 25-year-old doc-

tor in medicine, and Natalija Bačić, a 23-year-old student in law. They are both lobbying for civil engagement on different programs, as well as in a leadership academy. The two activists are against the privileged access to decision making to corporations and their lobbyists, they insist for stronger ethics rules for officials, politicians and authorities, and their view is that more transparency and work for the public interest are needed.

Ivan and Natalija are full of enthusi-asm and are curious about the meas-ures that should be taken for this “lob-by circus” to come to an end. g

Future of the EU

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What Education for Europe?‘What Education for Europe?’, which was the topic for a pre-lunchtime dis-cussion at the YO! Globe on 9 May, could be read as a question or, alterna-tively, as an exasperated plea, depend-ing on your country, age, and econom-ic philosophy. The panel tasked with addressing this thorniest of issues con-sisted of; Federico Potocnik, 27, Dep-uty Secretary General of the Youth of the European People’s Party from Slo-venia; Gina Arvai, 20, MEP Candidate for the Green Party of Luxembourg; Thomas Maes, Secretary General of the Young European Socialists of Belgium. The audience of 60, predominantly current or future university students, were able to express their approval, or lack of, using paper signs which, ironi-cally enough, used a concept taken from the website that serves as the greatest threat to any kind of study or concentration – Facebook likes. Hosted by ESU and OBESSU, two or-ganisations which represent students at schools and universities across Eu-rope, the wind shook the white tent of

the YO! Globe violently at times, and gave everyone present a vivid idea of what it would be like to live inside a golf ball. Inevitably, the subject of money, and the question of who pays for education, came to dominate the conversation.

“Education is not free, someone has to pay for it - like your parents paid for yours with their taxes.” Said Fed-erico, who advocates a form of delayed payment for university, a remark that prompted one audience member to shout out “that is progressive taxation!”

Federico added: “The more responsi-bility that you give the state, the less you have yourself, and you become a pawn for politics.”

Gina, who is balancing studies with her election campaign, remarked: “I come from a country where most of the schools are public and, because of this, people suffer less exclusion and segregation.”

Thomas made up for arriving an hour late by outlining a series of points which emphasised the dangers of viewing education as a factory for la-bour.

“Education should be a path to fulfil-ment [...] Charging for education is a way to ensure that inequality will per-sist throughout the ages.”

A forest of ‘likes’ were raised by the crowd and the debate, though tech-nical at times, reinforced the central concern of students around Europe; that education in the twenty-first century is inevitably intertwined with fears of how to pay for it. After the event ended, as the crowd began to depart the tent, Finnish audience member Nina struck a cautious but optimistic note to those worrying about the political apathy of Europe-an youth.

“Well, at least you can tell the differ-ence between the parties.” g

Text and Pictureby Andrew Connelly

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Text by Agnija Kazuša and Signe LerchePictures by Agnija Kazuša

Is Climate Change a Problem?

“We can’t buy a new iPad every year,” says Clémence Hutin, representative of Young Friends of the Earth Europe, the largest grass root environmental or-ganization. Floods, droughts, failed harvest are just a few of the consequences caused by climate change, and according to Clémence Hutin “Any change in climate is dangerous”. After the workshop “Climate Spring” we interviewed par-ticipants to find out what they think about climate change and what individual actions they take to stop it.


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Joost de Moor“I think climate changes are probably the biggest problem for humans. Es-pecially because it is so unpredictable, and signals indicate that it is not chang-ing for the better. We may be as careful as possible, yet the biggest problem is consumption, and it is consumers and governments who have to solve the problem together. Governments may push the consumers to change the hu-man behaviour.”

Dominika Nevrlova, Slovakia“I think climate change is a big problem because of the temperature, because of the country, because of poor east and many, many consequences. It’s a very difficult question and to be hon-est I don’t know the answer, because everything is about money. Any solu-tion will be denied because people are always looking for something cheaper, so I can’t tell what a solution could be. Of course, there’s something that each of us can do, like using not using cars, but public transportation, avoiding to buy products that are made in China and other things.”

Ema Karmelic“In some countries, climate change may not seem like a big problem, but it is because it reaches people differ-ently. I think, in 20-30 years people will feel it more. We can see already now that in North America there are more hurricanes and floods. We should find a way to decrease climate problems, but I don’t think we will find a per-manent solution, because we have al-ready reached the point of no return. But we can definitely try to adapt and change our way of living.”

Daniel Bösch, Austria“Climate change will affect us in the future far more than it’s affecting us now. We do not know how, but we have to be aware of consequences. For instance, because of global warm-ing there will be far more draught and flood. I think, everybody has to think what he/she can do in their daily life to limit their pollution to minimum. It’s also the responsibility of governments to try to use more renewable sources. I am myself using public transporta-tion – going by train or bus, not by car – even though I have a driving licence.”

Cahner Max, Spain“It changes our lives and certainly it will change the lives of future generations. It’s not a problem that affect us at this moment, but in a short term it will af-fect a lot of people. It’s not that you only have to combat the consequences, you have to combat the problem itself. Every person can do something, like, using public transportation, not buying “dan-gerous” technology, recycling, thinking about things you wear or eat. These are small things that could contribute in big scale to make a change. It’s impossible to think about all the things every day, but surely once you have more information, you have more choices to do these small changes. Maybe you start recycling, if you understand why you need to recycle. So, the first change is to be informed.“

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Could Canada’s natural resources provide an alternative energy source for the European Union?

Text by Kait Bolongaro, Picture byPiotr Siedlecki / publicdomainpictures.net

Canada, the New Russia?

At the European Youth Event 2014 in Strasbourg, the discussion sur-rounding the future of energy secu-rity was passionate and revealed the conflicted nature of energy policy in Europe. The looming role of Russia as the primary provider of energy for the Bloc dominated the panel “We got the power…” Participants debated with prominent panelists, including Edit Herczog, a Member of Parliament, and Alexander Ververken from en-ergy giant GDF Suez, about the con-sequences of the European Union’s long-term dependency on Russian energy sources in light of the current crisis with Ukraine.

The energy tangoAs Vladimir Putin celebrated the end of World War I in newly annexed Crimea, the de-escalation agreement to halt the crisis has floundered. The continuing dispute about Ukraine threatens to embroil Moscow and Brussels in a trade war and jeopardize energy security on the continent.

Canada is promoting itself as an at-tractive alternative to Moscow to

ensure adequate power supplies. On Tuesday, the Energy Ministers from France, Italy, Germany, U.K., Japan and the U.S. met in Rome. As the sole ma-jor oil and gas exporter in the group, Canada is attempting to leverage this position to woo Europe.

Before the crisis in Ukraine, the Eu-ropean Union labeled the tar sands as the dirtiest form of oil. The pro-posed Fuel Quality Directive would effectively bar Canada crude from the European market. In light of the cur-rent circumstances, it appears that Europe’s stance towards Canada’s oil sands has softened in a feat of envi-ronmental backpedaling. However, is it truly in Europe’s interest to pursue such a relationship?

The European Union and the United States are already enforcing sanctions against 30 Russian and Ukrainian of-ficials by freezing their assets and is-suing travel bans. So far, restrictions have avoided targeting trade be-tween the Bloc and their neighbour. Russia retaliated by threatening to cut off the gas supply to Ukraine and

Europe, citing Ukraine’s unpaid en-ergy bills.

However, the European Union is ad-dicted to Russian energy. Moscow is the Union’s largest exporter of oil, natural gas, uranium and coal. State-owned Gazprom provides 30% of natural gas on the market. Member States import 35% of their oil from Russia and 20% of their uranium for nuclear power.

The energy markets in Estonia, Fin-land, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Bulgaria are 100% reliant on Russian energy, leaving them dependent on Putin’s whim. It is estimated that Europe could cope for only 90 days without Russian energy. This leaves the Bloc scrambling to replace energy sources on a continent that is not self-sufficient.

Challenging the Russian monopolyThere are some contenders attempt-ing to challenge Russia’s dominance in the European energy market. Tur-key, EU candidate country, is consid-ered as a viable alternative to provide


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Europe with natural gas and oil via the Trans-Anatolian pipeline. Azerbai-jan, another EU ally, is also another possible route to avoid Russia.

However, Canada is eager to become the replacement of choice. The coun-try is in the final stages of agreeing to the Canada-EU Free Trade Deal and touts itself as a stable and reliable provider of energy. The northern be-hemoth produces 3.2 million barrels of crude per day and the number is expected to double by 2030. It holds the third largest proven oil reserves in the world, after Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. It has the third largest urani-um reserves and ranks 20th for natu-ral gas supplies.

The extent of Canada’s resources is actually unknown. As climate change severely alters the northern land-scape, the Arctic is seen as the new resource frontier. Russia and Canada possess the largest portion of its ter-ritory along with Greenland, Nor-way, Sweden, Finland and the United States, leaving the European Union’s options limited in this zone.

Secure energy, but at what cost?Although Canada’s natural resources have led to its wealth, energy pro-duction bears a heavy environmen-tal price. The oil produced in Cana-da’s tar sands is the most toxic fossil fuel in the world. It pollutes more than conventional oil due to a higher presence of carbon and hazardous materials such as sulfur and heavy metals. This composition makes transportation and production of the crude more complicated. The extrac-tion process is also more energy and water-intensive: producing one bar-rel of oil requires between 0.4 and 3.1 barrels of freshwater.

Most of Canada’s oil comes from the western province of Alberta. It is be-ing drilled in the Boreal Forest, the largest intact forest on earth. This area is 3 million square kilometres or roughly the size of India. It is the world’s largest wetlands with impor-tant water resources amounting to 200 million acres of lakes and rivers. It is also home to thousands of spe-cies of animals and plants, many of which are endangered. The Boreal

Forest is critical to stabilizing the global eco-system and mitigating climate change. It is the most impor-tant carbon store on the planet, with 11% of the total amount, making its conservation critical.

There is also a high human cost of the tar sands. Indigenous people, whose traditional territory is found in the region, are already suffering from higher rates of cancer and ill-ness. Their water and food supply has been contaminated and threat-ens to destroy thousands of years of tradition. Eventually, this pollution will impact all North Americans as water from this area feeds into the rivers and lakes of the continent.

While Europe could have more en-ergy security by turning to Canada instead of Russia, the question is if the EU is willing to jeopardize its reputation as a leader in environ-mental issues by purchasing oil from the tar sands, which it previously condemned. If the European Union doesn’t stand up for the environ-ment, who will? g

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Text and Picture byGiulia Dessi

The Possibilities of the Blue Economy

Interview with the inventor Gunter Pauli


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Entrepreneur, writer and lecturer, Gunter Pauli is father of six children and 12 companies. He is the founder of the Blue Economy, “a competitive business model that allows produc-ers to offer the best at the lowest prices by introducing innovations that generate multiple benefits, not just increased profits.”

How did you come up with the idea of the Blue Economy?“Sky is blue, the Earth is blue, and the oceans are blue. So why do you want to call it green when it is blue? The Blue Economy is better than the Green one. How could we have an economy where we’re happy to have green things when everything that is green is also more expensive? If it’s healthy for you it is also more expen-sive, but this doesn’t make any sense if it is only for the rich.”

When did you come up with this idea?“Time ago, I started a company called Ecover. We made soap and detergent from palm oil, but I did it in a beauti-ful wooden factory. I thought I was the hero of the world because I was bringing biodegradable soaps in a green factory and I was beating P&G and Unilever on the market, until I re-alised I was destroying the rainforest. I didn’t know. So, twenty years ago, I said ‘my business model is wrong because I have biodegradable and renewable products, but this is not sustainable.’ I was destroying the habitat of the orangutans.”

What did you do when you realised that?“I was in a partnership, and I motivat-ed my partners to change. But they

didn’t want to because they were making good money. So I left the company to them and I created my own new activities. Ecover still exists, but it is not an ecological company, even though it produces under an ecological label.”

Not many people are aware of this.“No, that’s why I have to tell people: Hey, I’m the one who did it and I said ‘oh my god, I’m wrong!’”

What is the size of the Blue Econo-my now?“Over the last 20 years we have in-vested about 4 billion euros. It’s not peanuts anymore. That’s a relatively sizeable amount. We have 188 pro-jects implemented. We make paper from stone. In Italy we use thistle to make lubricants, and to produce en-zyme for cheese. And we use it also for food for animals, and elastomers. These are very new ideas, but we’re putting them into practice. The re-sult is that we can have cheaper bio plastics than ever before, because we gets six products and therefore six revenues out of thistle. And we can generate jobs.”

If it is as simple and good as you say, why hasn’t everybody already con-verted to the blue economy concept?“Because it takes years to develop it. People are used to apps. This is not an app store. In the app, you snap your fingers and then you have it. You cannot expect to have a new in-dustrial system overnight. You need a generation to shift around. One of the biggest problems is that people are so used to the easy economy of the internet that they don’t realise

that at the end of the day you have to produce everything. If you’re not going to manufacture it yourself, someone else has to manufacture it.”

What would you recommend to a young entrepreneur with a good idea?“Talk to another entrepreneur who has another idea, because alone you’ll never make it. You only make it when you have groups of innovative people together. We need a lot of young people who see the opportu-nities to generate jobs, new products, new economy, to connect agriculture with manufactory, to generate value. That’s really what we are for.”

What can the EU do to facilitate the blue economy?“The EU has to give us the freedom to do it. Today, everything that is permitted in the EU is regulated. We have to get rid of all the regulations. We have hundred billions plastic bags that have been discarded in the world and every country has its own regulations. They should just say “no, you can’t use them anymore,” and let everyone organize themselves. The EU has been too involved in trying to determine what light bulbs we can-not use it, what plastic bags we can-not use it. We have to create a bit of a freedom to be innovative.”

Wouldn’t you need a lot of subsidies to make these innovative companies work?“We have 188 projects and zero sub-sidies. Not one. We don’t accept mon-ey from the government, because if you do, then you depend on the poli-ticians, and they always change.” g

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In the picture: Hanan Kostet

35 young people participated in a game called ‘We Have the Earth on Loan’ in order to discuss green ambi-tions in the European Union, simulat-ing the working methods and the pro-cedures of the European Parliament. We asked two of the participants for their opinions regarding the topic.

Hanan Kostet, 25, Electromechanical engineer, Belgian

Why are you participating in this event?“I studied mathematics and science, so compared to many of the other participants I don’t know much about politics; it’s very important to learn about it, however, because politics has such an impact on our everyday lives. Events like this make me learn a lot more about the subject, in an easi-er way than if I just studied in front of the computer.”

What are your green dreams for the future?“I want to change people’s mental-ity and lifestyle. At present, we live in an over-consuming society; we change our phone every year, which is unnecessary, and so we have a lot of products that we don’t need, and that kind of behaviour is one of the reasons that we have environmen-tal issues. Although I don’t eat much meat, I find it okay to eat animals, as it is natural for human beings. But we

eat too much of it, and meat produc-tion is unsustainable; in some areas, we over-fish to the extent that the populations are dwindling. There-fore, my green dream is that we live in harmony with nature.”

What are the biggest challenges for the European Union in relation to be-ing green?“The biggest challenge is that it is not financially viable to be green. The industries are the ones that have the most impact, and if they don’t see any profit, they will just continue as they do now. They’re focused on the short-term. If the European Union doesn’t provide incentives by supporting green solutions, and only penalises without offering any benefits, then the industries will just go to another area where there is less regulation. Then, the outcome will be that we will lose jobs here, as well as our eco-nomic power. The EU has the ability to influence this through changing consumer mentalities, by pushing re-search, developing greener solutions, and by thinking long-term. We need a big change, otherwise the situation won’t improve. So we need to find a win-win situation that allows the companies to think long-term and be happy to stay in Europe, while simul-taneously not damaging our planet. Our earth is on loan, and is essential for our survival. If we destroy it, we destroy ourselves.” g


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Text by Anders Hojberg Kamp, Sandra Stefanikova and Oana Vasiliu, Picture by Sandra Stefanikova

Young People Have Green Dreams

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Cheap and Easy Things That Can Be Done

During the workshop ‘Greening events – How to do more with less’, we asked the main speaker, Ewa Iwaszuk, her opinion on the sustainability of the European Youth Event, and what could have been better organised in order to make it more environmen-tally friendly. She is currently vol-unteering with International Young Naturefriends, an organisation that recently published Green Tool Box, a book, which aims to aid in making events, office work, cooperation, or alternative banking more sustainable. It offers guidelines for everyone, but the most important point is that each individual should do as much as they can with as little as possible.

How your participants travel“The big question is how to bring 10,000 people together for an event that only lasts two days. Everyone is flying, but the organisers should think about the carbon footprint and encourage people to take the train. They could also subsidise Eurorail passes, I know that only a few peo-ple got one. They could get a big

discount on train tickets by making deals with the train companies. And then there is a bike service in Stras-bourg; why don’t they give us a cou-pon for that? The bikes are here any-way, we could use them.”

How to feed your participants “I think that most of the food sold during this event is produced locally, which is good, but there should be more on offer for vegans and vegetar-ians. We were told that there would be a vegan option, but it actually consisted of eggs, milk, and cheese. Ecological food was promised but not available. And, as a nice gesture, there could have been some fairtrade tea and coffee.”

How to treat your participants “The t-shirts they gave us are en-tirely the wrong size, who knows if they were produced in a sweatshop? Best-case scenario, I will sleep in this oversized shirt but never wear it dur-ing the day. They should try to make less, and focus on nice merchandise that actually fits and is of good qual-

ity; people would be more interested, and it would be a far better advertise-ment.”

How to make your participants recycle “The biggest issue with recycling at this event is that group leaders print out a huge amount of material, even though it isn’t really necessary to have all these printouts. If there were recycling bins outside the parliament we could at least throw it away. We could use recycled paper as well. You can also look at the way the food is served; most of it comes in plastic containers, and only one cafe uses re-cycled cups.”

How to make the European Youth Event a green role model “On the global political stage, the Eu-ropean Union is trying to act like a role model in terms of climate issues; it would be great if this awareness was also reflected at events like this. Organising such a huge youth event could be a source of inspiration, it could even be possible to arrange it as a zero-carbon event.” g

Text by Christina Musa Mylko and Signe LerchePicture by Christina Musa Mylko


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Youth Unemployment:

a PerspectiveText by Jerneja ZavecPicture by Carmen Pliego


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Sebastiaan Rood, youth representative at European Affairs in Dutch Youth Par-liament is one among many youngsters engaged in different problematic re-lated to youth. One of the most impor-tant, yet very much ignored, is youth unemployment, which causes general unsatisfied feelings in the national as well as in the European policies. Se-bastiaan Rood was also one of the 38 participants at the workshop organized by Youth Future Think Tank; which took place on 9 May in European Parliament, in Strasbourg. His critical posture on the problem of youth unemployment was recorded on the spot.

“The ideas which I liked the most were two: on the one hand education, to make education more fitted to the needs of the young people and needs of their ambitions, to for example get a sort of job”. Sebastiaan contin-ued that this aspect is important in order to assure and assist that “one’s dreams become reality”. Exactly by educating young people and let them have dreams, they will come up with their own idea for the job, here is vital meaning to make sure that youth is engaged into the enterprise system, whereas the environment is open for new investments, exactly youth ideas. “If there is no possibility to go

into one conservative company, they could say ‘It doesn’t matter to me be-cause I’m doing it myself and creating my own company’, and they have the possibility to employ themselves later on, employ other young people, etc. So, these two ideas (education based on the need of young people and in-vestments into young entrepreneurs) are the ones that I liked the most”, summarised Sebastiaan.

Sebastiaan continued his thought on how educations could be based on the needs of young people: “That’s a good question. I think one of the main important things is: not only to talk with the board, but to have young-sters in the boards of education in-stitutes, because at this moment they are talking with, but not having the possibility to take responsibility for creating programme. And youngsters, even in the European Parliament, there are two young people member of the European Parliament, only two out of the 750; and to be honest, if you ask me that’s ridiculous! I mean two out of 750! And if you look at the European Commission, I truly believe that there are a lot of nice, excellent people, but at the same time they are all male, grey and over and over expe-rienced. Where is there a young per-

son?! I’m really inspired for example of the Austrian minister for foreign affairs [Sebastian Kurz], who’s 27, and who is really professional. Showing that your people can take responsi-bility, and can take their place in the society, because we are curious, we are willing to take responsibility, and we are willing to be part of this posi-tive change, we are willing to work for it! And I think this attitude of us really willing to be part of the change and investing our own time, perhaps money, perhaps other things like this should be much more appreciated”.

Sebastiaan Rood, youth representative at European Affairs stressed for the conclusion that “it is very important to take young people into account, as we see already a lot of young people in boards and they can serve as a role model for taking the responsibility. If there is a possibility for youth to show them [to elderly], then we can take this responsibility, but then there are here experiences, the youngsters need to have in order to gain certain position, which they will not get because the employers don’t give the possibility to achieve the board position. The young should represent themselves”, states determined Sebastiaan, as a kind of motto. g

In the picture: Sebastiaan Rood

Youth Unemployment

Despite soaring unemployment among young Europeans, thousands of positions across the continent re-main unfilled due to a chronic skills gap. Experts at the European Youth Event in Strasbourg have warned that the growing “skills mismatch” risks cutting young people off from their future. Anna Ludwinek from the Euro-

pean foundation said that young peo-ple were hungry for guidance on what skills they need for the job market:

“Young people and the industry are actually on the same page regarding highlighting what skills are necessary for the jobs market”, she noted. “But education partners are the ones who don’t really grasp this problem.”

Unemployment in the Eurozone stood at 11.9% in February according to Eu-rostat, the EU’s official statistics body,

but the rate among young people was nearly double that figure, at 22.9%. Policymakers have warned that the longer people remain out of work, the less attractive they become to em-ployers. Estimating the number of un-filled skills jobs is difficult although, in the US, the National Association of Manufacturers says that they have roughly 600,000 jobs that are vacant because employers can’t find workers with the right training. The figures in Europe may be even higher. The Euro-pean Commission has predicted that

Text by Andrew ByrnePicture by Tomas Lacika

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A Skills Mismatch Is Driving Up Europe’s Unemployment Levels


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there will be almost one million va-cancies in Europe by 2015, as employ-ers struggle to find staff with digital skills. According to its Digital Agenda Scorecard, the number of “digital” jobs is growing by more than 100,000 a year, but the number of IT graduates and skilled IT workers is falling behind the pace.

Audience members at the event sug-gested that the European coordina-tion of education programmes could go some way towards connecting

training with jobs. Responding to questions, French Socialist MEP Cath-erine Trautmann welcomed the calls to reshape education and training at the EU level.

“What’s important is that we give priority to a number of shared edu-cational objectives across the Union, based on what is needed to give peo-ple employment.”

But policymakers are divided on the right way to bridge the skills gap.

Sceptics warn against placing unrea-sonable expectations on the EU in terms of education and training poli-cies. Mikkel Barslund, an analyst at the Centre for European Policy Stud-ies, said that there was little desire to share power over education policy with Brussels:

“I think people have too much faith in what the EU can do here. I don’t feel that there is that eagerness in the member states to share education policy.” g

Youth Unemployment

Transparency on Skills as a Way Outof the Crisis?

Boryana Stancheva and Eva Parvanova, from the Bulgarian-Romanian Interu-niversity Europe Center (BRIE), want to develop a European Framework Of Reference for Common Employabil-ity Skills; FORCES. To help them “join FORCES”, they gave a workshop at the European Parliament on 9 May 2014.

“Everybody is always talking about em-ployability skills; what are those? How can someone obtain them?”, Stanche-va asks during the workshop. “These are important questions, because they could help fix the problem of youth unemployment in Europe.” Stancheva goes on to explain that there seems to be a discrepancy between the skills that a recent graduate can offer and those that are required by employers. Nevertheless, when the 25 participants

take part in an exercise, which involves picking the skill that they think is most important, the groups all choose the same basic ones; communication, problem solving, and self-manage-ment. Everybody knows you can’t get far without those. Unemployment problem solved? “Knowing what skills you should have doesn’t mean that you automatically have them; or that you’re very good at them”, Parvanova points out.

The need for flexibility When looking at which skills the participants are good at, and what occupies them, self-promotion re-ally stands out. This doesn’t surprise Parvanova at all “It’s a new generation. The world is changing. Employees to-day have to outsmart computers, be

cautious with all the new means of communication, and they have to be able to adapt very quickly. Flexibility is no longer a plus, it’s a necessity in each and every job.”

This doesn’t have to be a bad thing for youngsters though, because flexibility on the job market also means that it’s easier for them to take their skills with them and to simply change jobs when-ever they want. Parvanova is excited to see how this generation will handle jobs, and how the world will evolve: “It will be different, that’s for sure.”

A class in skills Stancheva explains that the work-shops are a way of gathering infor-mation. “The goal is to make a work-ing paper to regulate the employable

Text and Pictureby Izabelle Devulder

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skills, so it doesn’t remain some vague description that differs for every em-ployer and so that students know what to work on. In an ideal world, we believe, it should even be included in university curricula.”

Patricia Vlad (24) seems to be living in that ideal world already. The Roma-nian is currently studying at ESADE in Spain; “My university is very good at informing and guiding students in this matter. Whether you’re looking for general information or specific help in writing your resume, they’re always there.”

Just talk Vlad hasn’t really learned anything from this, but is quick to stress that this doesn’t mean that the workshop

isn’t useful. “I’ve just heard this all be-fore.” In her experience, the best thing you can do to educate yourself on this subject is “to have a coffee with some-one and to just talk to them. Exchange tips. That’s how you learn the most.”

Felia Wagner (16) says she doesn’t of-ten talk about this at home in Germa-ny, so the workshop is very interest-ing for her. Her classmates think that some of the information in the work-shop is pretty self-evident, and that learning how to sell themselves and how to present their skills isn’t going to get anyone a free pass out of the crisis. Nevertheless, they are learning and, as 16-year old participant Anne Gründel says, “just being here and tak-ing in the atmosphere at the Europe-an Parliament is a real eye-opener.” g


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A Rewarded Non-Paid Job

Text by Carmen PliegoPicture by Jerneja Zavec


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With an unemployment rate of 23,3 per cent among young people in the European Union and hundreds of qualified professionals looking for a job, experience matters and non-formal learning arises as a new way to make the difference.

This is what Pascal Lejeune, Head of Unit at Youth in Action of the Euro-pean Commission thinks about the situation.

“Between two young people with the same degree, the employer will obvi-ously choose the one who has been using his or her time to something more”, said Lejeune.

He is referring to the European Vol-untary Service (EVS), a program that this year will see 10.000 European youngsters from 17 to 30 years vol-unteering in areas such as Social Care, Kindergarten, Culture or Envi-ronment in different European coun-tries.

“What we have learnt from the ex-perience of the evaluations that we organize (on the EVS program) is that the benefits that such experi-ence provide belong to what we call the human capital, the social capital”, said Lejeune.

Participants in the EVS program usu-ally stay for a period which may vary from 2 to 12 months in a different country while they collaborate in a voluntary basis with a non-profit organization. Apart from learning non-formal skills such as planning

and organizing, communicating, and developing initiatives, they are pro-vided with language courses in their host country.

A very valuable capital in a moment when Europe is facing its worst eco-nomic crisis and it’s leaving a whole generation of young people in disas-trous working conditions.

According to a survey by Eurobarom-eter covering 28 member states, only half of Europeans (53%) say their working conditions are good and al-most 60% said their working condi-tions have deteriorated in the last 5 years.

“Self-esteem, self-assurance and hu-man capital” are just some of the benefits that participants can take from Erasmus+ program, added Lejeune.

And there are many ways to achieve them. Apart from Volunteering, par-ticipants can choose to do a Youth Ex-change, a shorter mobility exchange in a foreign country available to peo-ple between 13 and 30 years, or to take part in the Structured Dialogue.

These are just some branches of the new Erasmus+, the umbrella contain-ing all the EU’s current schemes for education, training, youth and sport, including the Lifelong Learning Programme (Erasmus, Leonardo da Vinci, Comenius, Grundtvig), Youth in Action and five international co-operation programmes (Erasmus Mundus, Tempus, Alfa, Edulink and

the programme for cooperation with industrialized countries).

Erasmus+ will have a budget of €14.7 billion for the period 2014-2020 and will reach more than 4.000.000 peo-ple in the next seven years. And not only youngsters.

“It’s also a programme for teachers, educators and youth workers”, said Lejeune, who pointed out that one of its aims was “reinforcing the connec-tion between education sector and business sector”.

Even if we won’t see the first results until 2017, when the first revision of the program is scheduled, young Eu-ropeans are optimist about it.

“Now it’s better because you can combine the programs. For example, the universities can cooperate with elementary schools and it wasn’t possible before”, said Miroslava Mil-ickova a young graduate from Czech Republic who completed and Eras-mus year in Uppsala (Sweden) and a Youth Exchange in Macedonia work-ing in the sustainability sector.

“Because of Erasmus, I got a job in an international office so now I’m help-ing students to use it”, she added.

Whether Voluntary Service and Youth Exchanges will help other young people as Miroslava to find a job we cannot know, but there are some non-tangible rewards in these ex-periences that now will count more than ever. g

In the picture: Pascal Lejeune

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Text by Desirée WidellPicture by Edwige Jeannenot

Unemployment Issues Divide Europe into

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Spain was the focus of the “Rising up over giving up” event. Three out of four panel speakers were from Spain and could report on a big crisis in the country.

All the panel speakers worked with organizations that try to counteract the problem with youth unemploy-ment, which is very high in Spain. With youth unemployment of 53,9 per cent, Spain is one of the coun-tries in Europe rated with the highest unemployment rate.

Eric Labuske, Activist for the youth development organization in Spain Juventud Sin Futuro, has seen the impact that the unemployment has done to Spain.

“Everyone is leaving Spain to seek a

better life abroad. 4000 people left Spain from 2008 to 2012, and I think that number is even higher now”, says Eric Labuske.

The jobs in Spain are not matching the expertise of the citizens. It is nearly impossible to find a job that suits your profile, your education and qualities. He speaks from his own ex-perience when he talks about start-ing up your own business in France versus Spain. In France it doesn’t cost that much and it is easy, but in Spain, he says it is “impossible for young people to be self-employed, unless they are rich”.

That is the big difference between the northern and the southern Eu-rope; the total youth unemployment rate is 10,5 per cent, but the rates in

southern Europe is a lot higher. In Greece, it is 56 per cent of the young people and in Croatia it is 49 per cent. The lowest youth unemploy-ment rate in Europe is in Germany with only 7,8 per cent.

The audience started to discuss the problem. The main question to Eric Labuske was if the unemployment is-sues make Europe smaller, since peo-ple move over frontiers to find jobs, and that should count as a good thing. Eric Labuske replied that the Spanish citizens are grateful for the possibilities that EU gives them.

“This is saving us, or else we would be stuck in Spain. But it is not easy to be forced to leave your family, friends. “We can not wait for a change, but we can fight for it”. g

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Why We Should Not Discard Trade

Unions Just YetText by Radka PudilovaPicture by Alex Grichenko / publicdomainpictures.net

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We often think that trade unions are no longer trendy. That they are a thing of the past, they fail to attract the youth, they have nothing to offer to society in the 21st century. But Sal-vatore Marra, President of the Euro-pean Trade Union Youth Committee, might have just gained them dozens of new young supporters at EYE2014, at least judging from the extending applause following the vast majority of his comments.

The image of trade unions has not been a particularly positive one. They are often accused of being unable, or perhaps unwilling, to represent the interests of young people. Yet, trade unions are not the only ones who

have problems connecting to young-er generation. With more than six million unemployed youngsters, and a rising number of NEETs, we need to ask ourselves why the young do nothing and why a generation which was once dubbed the “Erasmus gen-eration” starts to look more and more like yet another lost generation. Ac-cording to Marra, the answer is exclu-sion. Exclusion by definition runs con-trary to the principle of participation, which is promoted by trade unions, and which essentially contributes to democracy and more efficient public spending.

“Trade unions have crucial and very challenging role to play because in

the times of austerity it is increasingly difficult to unite people around prin-ciple such as solidarity, because we tend to be more and more selfish”, re-sponds Marra when asked about the relevance of the unions these days. He does not forget to add that every-body should have a voice and should be properly represented – especially if he or she comes from a marginal-ized group, which has traditionally been the role of trade unions. The challenge ahead for unionists lies in identifying how to reach out to those they want to represent and thus pos-sibly re-establish union’s position in the society. Getting more charismatic leaders like Marra could be a good start. g


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Is there still hope for young people? What can we do to tackle youth un-employment and create a better Europe? What should be changed? These are just some of the questions that most of European young people have in mind nowadays and to which nobody seems to find a solution.

Participants in the Ideas Lab celebrat-ed today in Strasbourg during Euro-pean Youth Event 2014 have been dis-cussing about youth unemployment and have tried to find some answers. Here are some of them:

Stepan Ficik, from Czech Republic-> Encourage language skills“Right now we are in a globalization time and there are people from differ-ent countries and different cultures everywhere, so if you want to go working abroad, you should be more efficient in language skills”.

Katharina Weiler, from Germany-> Same conditions for every job“So that we are really able to do the job we want to do and not just the job we can do”.

-> Education system reform, focused on child education opportunities“So that really every child has equal opportunities. That is something that most people always talk about but it

is not really something that is going on right now “.

Elsa, Fanny, Melanie, Alexandra and Pauline, from France. Académie de Nice. Mission de Lutte contre la décrochage scolaire-> Reduce discrimination during em-ployment“We propose reducing the discrimina-tion existing in the labor market: be-tween men and women, because of the ethnic origin, etc.”

-> Reduce taxes for medium and small companies“There should be lower taxes so that companies can employ more peo-ple”.

-> Less delocalization. More work for young people and better balance between wages“We should be judged according to our intellectual abilities and accord-ing to the work that we have effec-tively done, anything else”. “There should be more jobs for young people and people who are paid a lot should be paid less and vice versa”.

Fiona Livey, Raychel Scwartz and Markus Hoyer, students-> Create greater links between edu-cation and job market“That can take different forms but

we have come up with examples like professional workshops, job centers, places where people can learn who to write a cv, mentoring, visiting to working centers, etc.”.

-> Harmonization of qualifications“Apart from Bologna system, there is also a point in harmonizing other degree qualifications so that if peo-ple decide to go abroad, they can be sure that their qualification counts equally”.

-> Increasing mobility“Increasing language training and having in and out countries support, like a body system so that people who emigrate are not alone but they have a body to which refer”.

The Ideas Lab project was launched in April as an online space where young people from all over Europe posted their comments on the five key topics of European Youth Event 2014: youth unemployment, digital revolution, sustainability, European values and the future of the EU.

Most popular ideas posted on the web regarding youth unemployment have been discussed today in Stras-bourg and conclusions have been confronted with Marjory Van Den Broeke, Head of Press Unit at EP. g

A Laboratory Against Youth Unemployment Text by Carmen Pliego

Picture by George Hodan / publicdomainpictures.net

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Text by Thomas DechampsPicture by Martin Hanzel

European Politics Is Serious

Business, but It Also Can Be a

Game


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“Youth unemployment is your prob-lem too! So be concerned!” A mem-ber of the EPP group is losing his calm in front of his colleague of the EDF group. It is understandable; the Eurosceptic MEP is striking his oppo-nents with outrageous nationalistic verbal diatribes since the beginning of the plenary session. And each time his supporters are applauding loudly his new punch line against the Euro-pean Union and its representatives.

This happened this Friday in the Par-liament of Strasbourg but hopefully it will not have any political conse-quences. These MEP’s are actually young people from different coun-tries of the European Union taking part of a role play game in the con-text of the European Youth Days. They have been invited to simulate the work of the European Parliament and act as true MEP’s during an entire day of debates and votes about the problem of youth unemployment. The roles are distributed in advance following the composition of the real

European Parliament: the EPP is the biggest group, the S&D the second one, etc. Around 30 young European people attempt to influence the po-sition of the assembly in accordance with the interests of their own politi-cal group. At the end of the process, a basic legislative proposal is voted and the group who succeeded to impose his view in the text wins the game.

The panel of young voluntaries seems to have appreciated the expe-rience. “I was wondering what it was to be in the shoes of a Member of the European Parliament” says Emilia Chechtova, a Bulgarian girl who as-sumed the role of a member of the EFD group during the game. “In Brus-sels I had the opportunity to observe and follow the work of the MEP’s but I was mute and I have no words. Now I can express myself ”. Melanie De Groot, a 16 years old French girl representing the Greens, adds : “It is also because youth unemployment is a very attractive topic, we all feel concerned”.

As the organizers said in the open-ing speech, “playing simulation is both fun and educational”. Melanie De Groot gladly agrees with this and asserts that she has learned a lot about the European politics as well about the art of speaking in public. Sophie Brunner, her team-mate in the Greens group, doesn’t hide her desire to actually work one day for the European institutions and this game has definitively con-vinced her she would like it.

Matthias Berger, the one-day Nigel Farage and a nice Austrian school representative in the real life, don’t say anything else : “I love to talk like politicians, act like them and react on such things”. He was pretty convincing in his role of the sworn enemy of the European Un-ion, but hopefully it was just a role. The experience has on the contrary teached him and to all his mates how much European politics are important. Which does not mean it can’t be fun too. g

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Studying Abroad, an Added Value on the Labor MarketEuropean mobility. Student exchange. Erasmus. Studying abroad is a fabulous experience for many students but how does it really impact when entering the job market? More than 200 young peo-ple met to discuss this issue at the Euro-pean Parliament, in Strasbourg.

The vote is opened while students and high school students are taking the seats of MEPs to answer the question “Does education make your skills more employable?” 226 voters: 93 yes, 86 no. Let the debate go on!

Erasmus+, a better transition from edu-cating to jobAttila Béres, architect, was an Erasmus student in Finland and got his first job thanks to the contacts he made abroad. Erasmus program has now become Er-asmus+, with wider opportunities, and address students, trainees, volunteers or youth workers. If the budget of the program raised by 40%, it is also be-cause studying or training abroad does impact on the future professional car-rier of young Europeans and increases skills, explains Vanessa Debiais Sainton, Head of Sector Erasmus+ Higher Educa-tion at the European Commission.

Study or practice?Ya-Ting Yang, Senior International Ac-count Manager at Havas Media, was an Erasmus Mundus student in the Neth-erlands and Spain and reminds how studying abroad develops crucial skills such as being quickly adaptable and very flexible. “Mobility gives a real abil-ity to get to know how to react to dif-ferent cultures and not being afraid of giving ideas”.

According to a study carried out by Mc-Kinsey, employers also pay attention to skills such as mobility, responsibility, specific expertise and work experience. Therefore, Dr. Christoph Anz, Talent Manager for BMW Corporate Human Resources Department, recommends enrolling traineeships up to 6 months to make the experience the more valuable.

“What about a voluntary within a NGO?” asks Magdalena from Romania. Actually, all those experiences will allow the de-velop skills; the main challenge will be to highlight this experience. “A position in a supermarket or in an NGO develops ability to work in team, to be multi-task-ing and responsible, independent and organized” underlines João Malheiro,

Specialist in Human Resources. “It is up to each one of you to decide which ex-perience is the more valuable and will prepare you for the market” he added.

Studies, an entrance card for the labor market but not morePascal, from Germany, shares his worry of being too generalists as his studies focusses on political science, law and economics and wonders if employ-ers are more looking for generalists or specialists. “Both are the answer. It de-pends on the concrete the position we are hiring for but positions are opened to both specialists and generalists, we are in need of diverse personalities” re-sponds Dr. Anz.

When asked on the age limit to finish education, he reminds that all is about having a goal and taking advantage of all experiences besides: “When you are leaving a studying program, that’s the entrance card for the labor market but not more. You have to learn dur-ing your whole life and further develop your competences”. The key question is therefore how you position yourself and how you invest to develop skills. Possibilities are definitely unlimited. g

Text and Pictureby Tressia Boukhors

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Youth unemployment is a continuous challenge which needs to be tackled both by governments but also by the pro-active approach of the peo-ple who are most endangered by it. The Agros Youth Group from Cyprus which facilitated an interactive work-shop as part of the European Youth Event identified four key areas in which young people can involve and thus increase their likelihood of em-ployability: European opportunities, volunteering, research and planning and lifelong learning.

While it is certainly true that all of these could be ingredients for suc-cess, what we need to bear in mind is that they often contribute to social stratification, which further ostra-cizes vulnerable marginalized group. For instance, even though volunteer-ing brings upon personal develop-ment and allows for networking,

many young people simply cannot afford to make such an investment in terms of time and resources. The same goes for Erasmus+ opportu-nities, where the grant given often does not cover all the costs associ-ated with one’s study abroad and as such students still do depend on their family’s resources. Given these realities on ground, it is no wonder that already marginalized groups face further disadvantages as their better-off peers boost up their CV with assets such as studying abroad and volunteering in local house for elderly.

A spark of hope can be found in the digital sphere, where Massive Open Online Course as well as specialized platforms for youth try to overcome people’s barriers to education and job market. The YouRock platform seems to be a perfect fit for young

people who feel discouraged by sites like LinkedIn where others (competi-tors in job market) have years of ex-perience and prestigious degrees. YouRock makes people realize that they actually possess valuable skills – like problem-solving or critical thinking, regardless of their level of education or years of professional experience. Similarly, platforms like Coursera and EdX allow everyone with the connection to the Internet access the most up-to-date knowl-edge from top institutions all over the world.

Nowadays it is vital to think further about how to ensure that the pro-grams and opportunities offered in the European Union are as inclusive as possible. Otherwise the only pos-sibility for young people to get em-ployed is simply luck and good (fam-ily) connections. g

Text by Radka Pudilova, Picture byAnna Langova / Publicdomainpictures.net

What Does a Person Need to Have in Order to Get Employed?

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Text and Pictureby Ioanna Lougari

When Entrepreneurships Takes Two:Europe and You


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Is it really possible for clever and in-novative minds to see their plans run through the years? How much effort and money does it take to make mon-ey? Do you believe in your idea much enough to withstand all the nega-tive and underestimating predictions about the end of your plans from your very close friends and family mem-bers? Are you willing to sleep again to your childhood’s bed at the age of 25, 30 or even 35 and consider this as an investment for the future?

These are only few of the questions raised when the “Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs” project was discussed on Friday the 9th of May 2014, in a room of European Parliament in Strasbourg between 100 young peo-ple and the most qualified expert in the field. “Erasmus for Young Entre-preneurs” has nothing to do with Er-asmus for students, but it is a project that Europe counts on for the birth of new innovative figures in any busi-ness sector. This is why Europe offers the network, the know-how, mentors and money to brilliant minds and ide-as in order to help you build your idea or rebuild (in a profitable way) your plan. Europe counts on young peo-ple, as youth is expecting more from Europe.

The main idea of the project is that if luck is not knocking your door, you have to make it happen. It is indeed a life attitude that can lead your further, but it is not as romantic as it sounds! Actually, it is exactly the opposite, as

from the start of your effort you will face obstacles and barriers that you have to climb over or pass by. If you get easily tired or you don’t even con-vince yourself that your idea is good enough to safeguard your future with a quality life, then you are surely not suitable for applying to this Erasmus project.

Christian Weinberger, the programme manager and Directorate-General for Enterprise at the European Com-mission, underlined many times dur-ing his statements that “you have to know what you want to do, to know your costumers, to be inspired”. The objective of the programme is to give young entrepreneurs the time and the network needed, but the impor-tant part springs from the individu-als themselves. “This is the chance of your life”, Mr Weinberger says and adds “Funding is essential but can be found if your idea worths it. All you have to do is to get in contact with the intermediate organisations all over Europe”.

“We are matching persons and not companies. It’s like a puzzle”, Thomas Berger mentions – as a programme local contact point person from the Institute of Interdisciplinary Research e.V.- regarding the way the procedure goes. His organization has effectively helped more than 100 entrepreneurs during its 5 years life and as he under-lines, the good news is that the term “young” does not refer to actual bio-logical age, but mental one and more

specifically to the freshness of your idea and your experience in enterpris-ing. Be willing to cross boarders (lit-erally and metaphorically). Be open in meeting new people, learn new things and be good at taking advan-tage of an endless network provided that you never know where it can lead you. Additionally, Thomas says, “Grades and school certificates or any work experience do not matter at all. All it matters is the business idea! Just be serious about it!”

The bad news is that, if you look closely to this project and the idea, you will see that the road is not cov-ered with roses and the wind that blows away the petals is bureaucracy and real life’s surviving obstacles. As new entrepreneur who by now runs four companies Sebastien Aubert says, when he first started dealing with his idea, time and energy con-suming where extremely high, while he also had to face his empty pock-ets going together with the negativ-ity of his teachers, friends and family against his vision. He had to go back to his parents’ house at a mature age and also have his family providing him food, as he had no income for two years. But, as Sebastien mentions “You have to learn how to be charis-matic, respective and raise your voice. We made it after all! Our films are now being sold to many TV channels and we earn serious money. Even though our plans have changed completely from the original, we are very pleased and satisfied”. g

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Alex

Zyl

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Text and Pictureby James Mulhall

When you think entrepreneurialism, exciting is not a word that springs to mind, unless you are business-mind-ed, of course. That is exactly what happened at the ‘Erasmus for young entrepreneurs’ discussion in Europe-an Parliament on May 9th though – an exciting event. 80 people filed into the room for a lively, engaging chat.

A chat is the best way to describe the event – it surprisingly lacked for-mality. It was a breath of fresh air. There was only one name on the tip of people’s tongues as they left the event – Alex Zylberberg. It may not be a name that you have heard of – but his story is one that enthralled, amused and inspired the audience at the European Parliament.

Zylberberg is a graduate of the Er-asmus for Young Entrepreneurs pro-gramme and credits his success to his participation in the programme.

Of course, there were other panel-lists, all of whom spoke beautifully. Young would-be entrepreneurs were much more interested in who the dark-haired young man was, sitting among his older peers. Not opting for the microphone at his desk, Zylb-erberg took to the stage and inter-acted directly with the audience for what turned out to be the highlight of the event. It was a fresh, awaken-ing approach to an audience who had been in events all day and were hitting the evening slump as 7pm approached.

Before going into Zylberberg’s story though, what exactly is Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs?

Simply put, it is a business exchange programme. The Erasmus programme that most people know of sees stu-dents study in a foreign district. This is the same – except the exchange is within a business sector to give would-be entrepreneurs the opportu-nity to learn from those successful in the field.

Those lucky enough to be selected will work closely with a successful en-trepreneur for the duration of their exchange and learn priceless informa-tion about what it takes to succeed.The key, says Zylberberg, is that you feel like equals; not like a boss and a worker. Alex is one of many who has benefitted from the programme.

“My mom and my dad told me if I studied very hard, I would get a good job in a good company”, he said, of his beginnings.

And study hard he did. Did it work? Certainly, he got a good job in a good company and it paid well. Was he happy? No.

“I don’t like being employed!”, he said. What is the solution there? Well, you still need to earn a living so the only logical thing to do is become an en-trepreneur. A gamble, certainly, but it paid off – he now co-develops several websites across 21 countries.

Zylberberg is very clear about one thing – Erasmus for Young Entrepre-neurs was a key component to his success.

“We would meet for at least an hour every day, go for lunch, discuss ideas – of course if you have a job you have a commercial relationship but this is different”, he says. “This is between two people that have a lot in common except for age!”

Zylberberg’s speech was certainly up-lifting. He illustrated the make-up of the programme effectively – it is dif-ferent every single time, as it depends on the individual.

The aim of the talk was to raise gener-al awareness of the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs programme. When asked if he would change anything about it, the only thing Zylberberg could think of was that more people need to know about it. It is not what springs to mind when you think of ex-periencing life outside of your coun-try’s borders – but for the entrepre-neurial minds, it is a foot in the door.

Hot on his heels are three up-and-coming entrepreneurs who won im-mediate acceptance to the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs programme – Ian Clifford, Alena Mechtchanova and the overall winner Markus Es-peter. All three were overwhelmed with their victories but, if Zylberberg is anything to go by, they will be ones to watch in the future. g

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In the picture: Geles Claudiu


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Text and Pictureby Merle Must

A participant of Erasmus+ discussion in European Youth Event, Romanian origin Geles Claudiu is currently on his third Erasmus exchange in Italy. At first, he studied in the university, then went there as an English school-teacher and is now working for Eras-mus office.

How would you assess your exchanges so far?“They are one of the best experi-ences that I’ve ever had. Exchange is a good possibility and in my opinion, as many students as possible should do it. Although it is a big part of it, Erasmus is not only about education, but also about culture, languages and meeting other people. It is the point of European Union – getting to know other cultures.”

How did you exactly learn about other cultures?“When I was in Sicily as an English teacher in gymnasium, Erasmus na-tional agency said that I have to give at least two hours about Rumanian

culture and get back other two hours of students’ culture in a certain time. So, one hour they were showing me Sicilian traditions and the other hour I was explaining about resemblances and differences between our cultures.”

What else have you discovered during your Erasmus time?“I’ve understood that being at home, you don’t know what else is there for you in the world. After doing my Erasmus and now, talking with stu-dents who have returned from the exchange, I hear “now I know exactly what I want to do, as there are other things for me to do and not necessar-ily here in my own country.”

What kind of problems are Erasmus students facing?“Some have trouble finding a flat or a room to stay and they might end up living in a hostel for a few weeks or get scammed by paying money for a non-existent flat. Some students, for example those who study chemis-try or physics are good at their own

subject, but not in languages. When the program is taught in a foreign lan-guage and you don’t speak it so well, knowing chemistry or physics well is not still enough and you might not understand it all. The language cours-es ensured by Erasmus are mostly up to middle, B1 level, but this is not suf-ficient for Master’s in Physics.”

What could be improved in Erasmus programs?“They have already done many things, but it would help just to improve the communication between partner uni-versities, which is seldom in a perfect level.”

What do you think about the new possi-bility that students can also go outside Europe?“Although Erasmus was originally meant for Europe, it is good to extend it! Actually finally it is about globaliza-tion of the cultures. It is great to give someone from America or Asia a pos-sibility to come to Europe and take a taste of it and vice versa. g

“My Erasmus Experience Has Been One of the Best I’ve Had”

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A Puzzling Business IdeaJoy of play was the key centence of Ale-na Mechtchanova’s buisnes idea. She was one of the ten contestants who got the chance to pitch in front of a jury at the business idea contest held by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry.

Her idea was called Mystery Vacation, a pitch that stood out from the rest of the contestants ideas since the other ones centered much more around creating platforms on the internet. Her idea was about real life, making cities more fun to for vaccination for children.

“People says, that after they got a kid they never went on city vacations any-more,” said Alena during her pitch ex-plaining that it is a lack of activities in

the cities for families with children she wants to takle.

Families with kids together with young playful people was her main target group. The main idea was grown from her background in theatre and game design, made to encourage the play-fulness in everybody. The idea is to rent or buy a flat in Copenhagen (the city she is currently living in) and, as a tourist atraction, create a special room. Once the visitors get inside it the game begins. She is a lot inspired by a com-putergame where you go into a room and you are supposed to solve a lot of puzzles before you get out.

”I have av background in theatre and game design, and I always wanted to

corporate my expertise in business”, Alena Mechtchanova says.

The flat in copenhagen is just the be-ginning. The global business idea is to expand flats full of puzzles and games in different themes into other cities and countries.

Alena was one of only two women pitching their ideas in the contest, an reflection of how the field of business actually looks like.

”It is a male dominated market, is harsch to get into it and face it. Maybe it is because it seems like a competitive market, and therefore women do not dare to get in to it. And it is a pity”, says Alena Mechtchanova. g

Text by Desirée Widell, Picture byGeorge Hodan / publicdomainpictures.net

Youth Unemployment

Polish accountant and entrepreneur Karol Czyszek gives practical advice to young people that plan to

establish their own business.

10 Things to Bear in Mind If

You Are Planning to Become an Entrepreneur

Text byVerna Leinonen

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1. Be ready to work hard.– I didn’t have any clients for the first 6 months. Now I’m doing fine, but still, working hours of an entrepreneur are potentially 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.

2. Don’t take credit on light bases, specially big ones.– I started without external resources, I used my savings for the office and equipment. Also my family helped me in the beginning. If you don’t have income, don’t take credit.

3. Make a long-term business plan.– My plan was for three years, some are for even longer period. It takes years to create business, not months or weeks.

4. Don’t do something that you don’t know well.– Adventures might cost you a lot of money. Start with something that you are good at. Most important thing is to get money out of your business.

5. Grow step-by-step.– I started on my own, now I have 3 empoyees. If your cus-tomers are happy, they’ll recommend you to others. Once you do your work well, the word will spread.

6. Create personal relations with your clients.– Good relationship with your accountant is important. I communicate with my clients, remind them of bills and so on. If the clients are happy, they’ll stick with you.

7. Hire a good team.– A worker can always resign, but an entrepreneur can’t. Be awere of the skills of your workers. Think about hiring some experienced workers: even though they requiere bigger salaries, they have strong skills.

8. Remember that you have to pay taxes.– About one third of the cost of an employee goes to the state. If you don’t have enough money and good expecta-tions, you can’t hire employees.

9. Be aware of the downsides of the life of an entrepreneur.– You are always in charge of everything. You have to work a lot and you can’t even dream of a two-week vacation.

10. But always remember the good sides.– To me they are money, power and love. Once the difficul-ties of the beginning are over, you are able to earn good money. You don’t depend on anybody – almost. I am my own boss but depend on the clients’ satisfaction. Last but not the least: runing your own business gives you confi-dence and confidence makes you sexy!


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There Will Not Be a Single Educational Model in EuropeA panel of six experts discussed this Friday in the EP of Strasbourg about the effectiveness of mobility inside the European Union to tackle youth unem-ployment. The participants were uni-versity teachers, unionists, representa-tives of transnational institutions, etc. but they all agreed about one thing: there won’t be a single educational model in the EU.

They actually reacted about a com-ment of a young boy in the audience. He stated: “I doubt that we could just copy a system from one country to an-other” after the panel of experts has discusses about the good practices of Germany or Austria that could be ex-ported in the other European Coun-tries.

“We learn from each other but we are not copying each other” agreed Mar-lyce Breun, from Pôle Emploi Alsace. “We have to admit that it is complete-ly different”. She also explained the doubts of some Greek colleagues she met in an international meeting. She

wanted to convince them to follow the example of Germany that promotes professional internships in companies for its youth. They answered that in Greece 80% of the companies are fa-milial entities with less than 3 employ-ees! In this case, sending all the young Greeks to a professional internship won’t be as effective as in Germany.

Ronja Endres, from the German Trade Unions Federation, mentioned also the fact that this kind of system requires a lot of professional trainers and a huge administration. So, it costs also a lot of money. This has to be kept in mind be-fore imposing this system to countries who already struggle with their nation-al finances. It also requires companies who are ready to welcome this sort of internships and a motivation from the population to support the kids in this experience. For the moment, these conditions are not met in most of the European countries. Once again, the so-called “German model” has some-thing to teach us, but it doesn’t mean we have to copy it everywhere. g

Text by Thomas Dechamps, Picture byPetr Kratochvil / publicdomainpictures.net

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Hungary, the Youth,

(Un)employment,and the Future

A group of university students from the Hungarian city of Pecs recently participated in a workshop regard-ing policies that could be, or already are being, implemented in order to lower the youth unemployment rate. Even though they themselves are active in youth initiatives, they cannot hide their pessimism when thinking about finding a job after graduation.

“Youth unemployment in Hungary is a big and unsolved problem, and I do not think that it will be solved in the near future. It is a rooted is-sue and, even though we have some solutions, like the Youth Guarantee and university-based services for students, I simply do not see an end to this”, said Mercedesz Oszlanczi.

When talking about the possible so-

lutions to the on-going crisis, they agree that it should not be entirely the responsibility of the govern-ment. In the words of policy-makers, it should, rather, be a bottom-up ap-proach, where students and young people in general engage them-selves by doing extra work and join-ing available programmes in order to gain skills and experience that will help them to get a job in the future. One of the ways to increase their ca-pabilities is through the possibilities offered by various EU programmes included under the umbrella of Er-asmus+. However, many of the stu-dents at Pecs University do not make the most of such opportunities, ei-ther due to insufficient funds or be-cause of a lack of interest in going abroad. Knowledge of alternatives besides study abroad is generally low, so there is definitely a need for

both the Hungarian government and the EU to do their homework and spread information to the potential beneficiaries of their programmes.

Mercedesz concedes that the moti-vation for Hungarians to go abroad is not related to cultural awareness or the joy of living in another coun-try, but primarily to personal finance. Mark Molnar also highlights that, in border regions, particularly those in Western Hungary, around 30% of people travel to neighbouring states such as Austria to work. Other work opportunities are concentrated in the capital of the country, where many people eventually move in order to secure their living. Going abroad, or at least moving to Buda-pest, may thus be the only way for Mercedesz, Mark, and their peers from Pecs to find employment. g

Text by Radka Pudilova, Picture byJunior Libby / publicdomainpictures.net


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Breaking Down the Barriers to

EducationText by Andrew Byrne, Picture byPeter Griffin / publicdomainpictures.net

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What are the obstacles to an inclu-sive education system in Europe to-day? That’s the key question posed by ‘Education, we have a problem!’, a new initiative organised by OBESSU – the European association for sec-ondary school student unions.

Education has always come with as-sociated costs and now, at a time of high unemployment and wage cuts, many families struggle to support the education of their children. The costs of school trips, projects, and learning materials can often add up to over 1,000 euro per year accord-ing to Jana Sikorska, a member of OBESSU’s taskforce from Slovakia.

But Jana says that the obstacles to inclusion go beyond financial dif-ficulties, and are as much about the

culture of education as its costs:

“It is the role of education to help stu-dents accept themselves as they are. This should be reflected in the school programme,” she said.

The campaign was launched last year, and its leaders presented their work to 37 participants at a work-shop at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on 10 May 2014. In a lively session, which discussed is-sues ranging from gender roles to disability access, the participants shared their experiences of educa-tion in their own countries. But the project’s organisers also faced prob-ing questions about the project’s impact. Audience members ques-tioned whether OBESSU leaders had thought seriously about how a cul-

ture of inclusion could be promoted in practice.

“Different solutions will work in dif-ferent countries. Our role is to make our organisations aware of the prob-lems and leave the actions to them”, said Sophie Worrall , a member of the project’s Danish taskforce.

“The taskforce decided that different member organisations will decide how to implement the project”, she added.

So far, the project has issued guide-lines that highlight five barriers to inclusion and outline some solu-tions. Whether these guidelines will translate into real change in Euro-pean schools is now a question for national unions, who must put ideas into practice. g


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Do Not LimitRoma to StereotypesDo you believe that the labour mar-ket offers equal opportunities to eve-ryone? Without hesitating, all partici-pants of the workshop move towards the sign that says NO. The YES sign sits there, abandoned.

“If everyone knows this and every-body agrees that this isn’t how it should be, then we should change things”, Astrid Oelpenich says. “Start-ing with being aware of our own thoughts.” Oelpenich is one of the organisers of the workshop that took place in the European Parliament on Friday, May 9th. She’s on the board of equal rights organisation Phiren Amenca. Together with international Roma youth network Tern Ype, they want to help Roma around Europe, by raising awareness and improving the way Roma are being perceived, by others, but also by themselves.

Change“It’s easy to feel alone as a Roma”, Jonathan Mack, who works for both organisations, explains. “There is so

much discrimination and solutions are hard to find. But we can’t give up. If everybody keeps placing you in the role of a victim, it’s easy to give in and settle into that role. If we let the Roma do that, then nothing will ever change. But how do you keep them from losing their self-esteem if every-body thinks badly of them?”

For co-founder of Tern Ype, Maryana Borisova, there’s no doubt: “This gen-eration has to be different than the older ones.” It’s getting easier and easier to work internationally and to pass information along. Tern Ype and Phiren Amenca use this to work on Roma inclusion. Mack explains that they want to stimulate local youth groups all over Europe, who come together from time to time. “Durable change, that’s what we have to install. One workshop at one European Youth Event won’t solve anything. That’s not how you change social inequality.”

Raising awarenessOelpenich believes that it is possible

to change the world, one workshop at the time: “By discussing the topic and reflecting on how we think, we can change the stereotypes and so battle racism and change the society.” She asks the participants at the workshop simple questions and gives them room to fill in the blanks themselves. It doesn’t take long for the problem to emerge: nobody is really close to any Roma everybody assumes things.

With 12 million, the Roma are the most represented ethnic group in Eu-rope. And still they seem so foreign. There’s a great gap between Roma in any country and the natural popula-tion of that country. A Belgian partici-pant even claims that there aren’t any Roma in Belgium. “Romanis aren’t just gypsies with guitars and long dress-es. Do not limit people to a stereo-type. Whether it’s that of a passion-ately dancing gypsy woman or that of a lazy, alcoholic Roma man. That’s why awareness is so very important”, stresses Mack firmly. “It will be a long-term project, but it can be done.” g

Text and Picturesby Izabelle Devulder

In the picture: Astrid Oelpenich

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An Interactive Survey to Understand Youth Work NowadaysArte, a French-German TV station, launched at the beginning of April an interactive online survey called “World of works”.

“We wanted to do something about youth unemployement which wasn’t sad. Something interactive, sexy to make people think about the back-ground of what was going on”, ex-plains Sinje Matzner, journalist at Arte who developed the idea.

The 60 questions were separated in 5 sections: work, money, educa-tion, politics and the futur. Always asked with a little derision, the ques-tions explore all aspects of work: How did you choose your studies? Who is helping you when you’re

out of money? Were you willing to prostitute yourself? Is working for Wikipedia a job? The given answer possibilities sometimes were very surprising. When asked if an unpaid internship is normal, you can either answer “The intern is learning some-thing. Isn’t that enough?” or “Slavery was abolish, wasn’t it?”

“It is not a very serious survey. We had no ambitious on being repre-sentative. We wanted people to have fun. Every answer you give, you get feedback: a serious info”, describes Iris Hartl, journalist at Arte who also worked on the project.

“It’s more a serious game”, adds Sinje Matzner.

After answering all the questions, youth can also compare their results to the other participants, or com-pare the results by sexe or age, or both.

“It’s for the youth (16 to 35) but any-one can participate. Their results will just not be counted. It tells us a lot about ourselves and all the differ-ents opinions on the subject”, said Sinje Matzner.

To make this survey, Arte worked with a German coding entreprise.“It was also important to make youth participate. Our team is 30 years old or less. Maybe that why it’s different from what older people could have done”, concluded Sinje Matzner. g

Text by Edwige JeannenotPictures by Desiree Widell

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Warning: This is an ecstatic piece.

Valentina Avincola from Italy, Marie-Sophie Oner from Germany, and Siru Laine from Finland are all enthusiastic about Europe and mobility inside the Union. They have all gained interna-tional experience; Avincola is perform-ing doctoral studies in Germany, Oner has volunteered for a year in Peru, and Laine is pursuing her Bachelor’s in the Czech Republic.

“I got really passionate about being abroad. It broadens your horizons, and you really grow as a person. I’d like to motivate every person to do so”, Oner says.

She also learned what ‘open borders’ re-ally means – and what it does not.

“When visiting Ecuador from Peru, I had problems on the border, even though I had an official visa. That was the point when I really appreciated being part of

the European Union. Here, travelling and working abroad is so easy”, Oner says.

Even though the three are enjoying free mobility in Europe, there are black clouds on the horizon. According to a recent study, more than 40% of young EU citizens would like to go to another European country to study or work, but not that many actually do it. The Euro-pean Union is trying to push for mobil-ity through extra funding - Erasmus+ got a huge (40%) increase to its budget for the next seven years.

During the European Youth Event 2014 event in Strasbourg, there was a panel discussion on how mobility could be improved. Laine and Avincola believe that the problem is not that there aren’t possibilities for going, but that many don’t actually want to. They say that some consider it to be too much of a challenge, and don’t want to be sepa-rated from their home and friends.

“Everybody who wants to go, can go. It’s kind of sad, that so many people don’t use this opportunity”, Laine ar-gues.

“The European Union is such a beau-tiful project, but if people don’t par-ticipate in it, I really don’t know. I don’t have a solution, how to motivate peo-ple to move”, she adds.

Avincola recalls a panel discussion at the Talent Mobility in Europe event, in which one participant introduced him-self by saying that he hailed from Cata-lonia, rather than Spain.

“I mean, we are Europe! As long as these divisions, even within European countries, exist, I feel it’s useless to talk about Europe”, Avincola states.

Still, she feels confident that the future of Europe involves unity. “We are the first generation. It happens in the next century”. g

In the picture: Valentina Avincola (left), Marie-Sophie Oner and Siru Laine

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As a Social Entrepreneur,I Do Business with Mon

Coeur Text by Oana MoisilPicture by Karen Arnold / publicdomainpictures.net


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An elephant. That’s what comes to Irina’s mind, a Romanian participant in the European Youth Event, when she thinks of “social entrepreneur-ship”. “As a baby, it’s hard to believe that it will grow so big”, she explains. She is participating in the “Social en-trepreneurship – The key to unlocking young people’s potential?” workshop, in a “yurt” that’s hosting approximate-ly 60 other people. Everyone is invited to share their vision on what this new concept refers to. Diana, a member of The European Confederation of Co-operatives in Industry and Services (CECOP), doesn’t think of elephants. For her, social entrepreneurship can be translated into “having democ-racy at the work place”. Others in the workshop share her vision. Kareem, a young entrepreneur from Germany, believes that it is about “finding ways to do business thinking of how to help others, not of how to help your own pocket.”

“To start a social enterprise, first name the things you would like to change around you”The one who teaches what social en-terprises are is Lucie Frisoua, a Czech

freelancer trainer from the Interna-tional Young (IYNF) Naturefriends or-ganisation. She thinks that, in what concerns the first steps of every social entrepreneur, one should first take into consideration the surrounding problems. She gives everyone yel-low post-it papers to share the things they want to change in the society.

Social exclusion. Corruption and nep-otism. Fear of failure. Inequality, low moral standards, exploited workers. People moving away from the coun-tryside. Individualism. The power that the International Monetary Fund has upon decision makers. These are just few of the many problems the partici-pants have identified.

“I don’t like to say business”Lucie doesn’t believe that social en-trepreneurship should be named business, even though, in order to survive as a social entrepreneur, one must follow almost the same rules as other investors. “Banks have the same expectations as from the normal en-terprises and you are still competing in the same trade with regular in-vestments”, underlines Lucie. But the

pluses of participating in social enter-prises overshadow the minuses. The examples she offers to empower her arguments are few ideas that Czech young people implemented in their country.

One of the most interesting ones is “Pragulic”, a touristic guide facilitated by homeless people, so one can see another face of the Czech Republic’s capital. “FAIR=ART” is another idea that some young Czech lawyers came with, in order to provide free legal services for artist who don’t know, for example, how to sell their paintings without being robbed.

MU! for ideasTen minutes before the ending of the event, participants are provoked to come with ideas about how a cow could be the starting point of a social enterprise. From cow’s intestinal gas-es used as fuel, to ideas about renting the animal for experiencing how it is to live with a cow for a day, the par-ticipants bring more than 10 different ideas to this. One might think that finding ideas for social entrepreneur-ship is as easy as saying “MU!” g

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What Happens When You Buy a Fair Trade Product?

Text by Alexia Kalaitzi, Picture byFrederic Raevens / Max Havelaar / Fair Trade Finland

“On the World Fair Trade Day, 10 May, nobody would be better suited to explaining everything about the Fair Trade movement and its benefits than Alex Flores. Alex has been working for the last 10 years as a Fair Trade pro-ducer in El Salvador. A strong sup-porter of the idea, he produces or-ganic cashew nuts with other small farmers, and travels around the globe in order to advocate and promote the practice of Fair Trade.”

Can you tell us what Fair Trade is all about?“Fair Trade is an opportunity for de-veloping countries to improve the quality of life for their people. Fair Trade doesn’t only help by increasing

the income of the families involved in production, but also by educating these families too, for example re-garding using less chemicals in pro-duction. We know that the only way to develop the country, the family, and the economy is through educa-tion. So when a farmer is certified as a Fair Trade farmer, he becomes a more committed, more responsible person.”

What does it mean when I buy a Fair Trade banana?“When you get a Fair Trade banana, for example, you pay a minimum price that helps the farmers to pro-duce that banana without losing money. But you also pay a premium, a little bit extra, for that banana, which is usually between 10 and 20 cents. This goes to the family and the com-munity, but it also gets invested in social projects, which benefit the ag-ricultural communities. When you get a Fair Trade product, you support a farmer, you support a family; you help kids go to school and people get bet-ter jobs.”

Which European Union policies are inconsistent with Fair Trade?“The big international companies which produce on a large scale don’t actually support us. They are affecting us, they are affecting the small farm-ers. Mass-produced pesticides are ex-ported to poor countries, and these

work against organic products. Also, European policies favour the produc-tion of Genetically Modified foods, which can damage our small-scale agricultural activities. Thus, I would say that there are still policies in place that do not support Fair Trade.”

Are you convinced regarding the ef-forts of the European Union to sup-port the development of poorer countries? “Some economic policies are ben-eficial to developing countries, but I don’t really know how far it can go, how much these policies will affect or help our countries. In some cases, when a poorer country like mine, or a region such as Central America, signs a Free Trade agreement with the Eu-ropean Union, we really need to pay attention to the subsidies which can affect our agricultural activities in the country.”

Regarding Free Trade agreements, Alex says that they should take into consideration basic human rights, and ensure decent working condi-tions while prohibiting child labour in developing countries. He also stresses that international aid should focus more on the transfer of knowledge and technological innovations than on money, adding that, in the next few years, cooperation between dif-ferent countries and continents will be a necessity. g


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YO!Village

Day 2:9 May

Letizia Gambini twitterbird@letzi83 Day 2 @ #eye2014 - Starting with beautiful music in the hemicycle. Goosebumps. #eymd #yofest insta-gram.com/p/nz2BG2mSJx/

Laure Fourquet twitterbird@laurefourquet“Tell me, and I will forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me, and I will understand” #Europe #EYE2014 #EYMD

Edvardas Pocius twitterbird@edvardaspocius #SocialMedia promotes #democ-racy by empowering citizens, letting them 2b sources of information - #Basille #EYMD #DigitalRevolution #EYE2014

Andrew Connelly twitterbird@connellyandrewControversial lack of diversity at the European Parliament dessert coun-ter. Whom do I sue? #EYMD pic.twit-ter.com/uRYo1FBh5u

Slavena Zaharieva twitterbird@s_zaharieva#eymd Digital duel role playing game: discussion starting now on EU and data protection issues.

usayd twitterbird@usayd“Unemployment is a real issue. Yes but this place has nothing to offer them!” #EYE2014 #EYMD

Milena Stošić twitterbird @stmilena #EYMD - Where is the border be-tween journalists being the activists at the same time? Should they? Wht abt advocacy journalism?

Signe Lerche twitterbird@signelercheWe are getting ready to report about the future Europe #EP #EYMD #sus-tainability pic.twitter.com/rUZ29E-ot7u

Carl Fridh Kleberg twitterbird@cfklebergttIn Strasbourg, #EYMD kicking off. Unsafety keyboards and cameras, y’all... pic.twitter.com/W9iskElFe7

Milena Stošić twitterbird@stmilena@sandrarebecca underlines> we need educated, professional journal-ists on the ground. that’s part of re-sponsibility of media. #EYMD

Órla Ryan twitterbird@orlaryan@youthpress ‘Journalists can re-ally facilitate change in the world’ #EYMD #EYE2014

youthmediadays.eu twitterbird@EYMD “We will try to create an atmosphere of one big, professional editorial staff.” - @K_E_Morton at the #eymd opening

youthmediadays.eu twitterbird@EYMD 120 young #journalists. Guess how many laptops, iPads and smart-phones this makes in one press room?? #eymd #Nerds pbs.twimg.com/media/BnICThYIIAEXCv6…

youthmediadays.eu twitterbird@EYMDThe #eymd team is already getting into the working mode #nofreetrips #eye2014 pbs.twimg.com/media/BnCNtacCIAEIfz3…

Day 1:8 May

European Youth Press twitterbird@youthpressPanel discussion “No news is good news?” just started!What is the role of media in reporting on political pro-cesses and social change? #EYMD

Katherine Rydlink twitterbird@kathagaros“Curious, responsible and independ-ent - that’s what media has to be!” #eymd #EYMD2014 at European Parliament

Kait Bolongaro twitterbird@kbolongaro lazy journalism: turning out press re-leases and not checking basic facts. have you been guilty of this? #EYMD

usayd twitterbird@usayd“I’m not sure that the traditional me-dia outlets will weigh as heavy in the long run.” - independent media for the win #EYMD

youthmediadays.eu twitterbird@EYMD “The media coverage of these @EPElections has increased dramati-cally”, says Yannis Darmis. But is its content critical enough? #eymd

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Day 0:7 May

Kasia Mortoń (Kate) twitterbird@K_E_MortonThe first part of the European Youth Media Days team is already in Strasbourg. #eymd #EYE2014 t.co/8IH0nVKwsi

youthmediadays.eu twitterbird@EYMD@indjilin and other #eymd team members preparing the event in the sun - it’s going to be some great days! #eye2014 pbs.twimg.com/media/BnCq4N0CQAAWQTc…

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Demetrios Pogkas twitterbird@pogkas#EYMD 2014 closing session, re-porting groups presenting out-comes. Great people,professional work,inspiring experience pic.twitter.com/9T0IEBYl7A

Letizia Gambini twitterbird@letzi83Wrapping up some fantastic days sharing ideas with 5000+ young Eu-ropeans at #eye2014 #eymd #yofest instagram.com/p/n2bV4iGSCx/

Demetrios Pogkas twitterbird@pogkas#EYE2014 participants,something to remind you what you experienced: orangemagazine.eu/editions/eu-rop…. Those not attended,a glimpse of the action #EYMD

Bettina Baumann twitterbird@frl_pimpfelmosa“Curious, responsible and independ-ent - that’s what media has to be!” #eymd #EYMD2014 at European Parliament

youthmediadays.eu twitterbird@EYMDPax quote: I’m more used to free-lancing, but #EYMd was a great op-portunty to work in a newsroom and learn about new reporting technolo-gies.

youthmediadays.eu twitterbird@EYMD@JKTimson: “This weekend makes me want to be a journalist again.” #EYMD

Maaike Willemsen twitterbird@mfwillemsenRT @youthpress: Final report of the #EYE2014 is coming up quite soon in upcoming period! Stay tuned :) #eymd

youthmediadays.eu twitterbird@EYMDR. Wieland, Vice-Pres. @Europarl_EN: If you have any idea how to get young people to debates - I do every-thing expect tabledance. #EYMD

Stylia Kampani twitterbird@StyliaKampaniSaturday night and EP Presser full - motivation on to reach deadlines #EYMD14 @EYMD #EYE14

Day 4:11 May

youthmediadays.eu twitterbird@EYMD@Youthpress board member @K_E_Morton moderating closing panel of #EYE2014 ow.ly/i/5wQe6 ow.ly/i/5wQex #EYMD

Katherine Rydlink twitterbird@KathagarosYES!last day of #eymd I managed to get out of the parliament without getting lost!Thank you guys, it’s been a pleasure working with you!

youthmediadays.eu twitterbird@EYMD The #YouthUnemployment report-ing group walked more than 17km per day to cover their topics. #hard-knocklife #EYMD

youthmediadays.eu twitterbird@EYMD3 - 2 - 1: We start the final panel of #EYMD 2014, thanks to all the partic-ipants, the facilitators and the whole team! :) You did a...

youthmediadays.eu twitterbird@eymd@Youthpress journos as speakers & moderator at ‘big data under control’ panel. @sandrarebecca @CFKle-bergTT . #EYMD ow.ly/i/5wxnN

Edvardas Pocius twitterbird@edvardaspociusPartic. of #EYE2014 are discussing political strength of #EU’s response to the #US over the #NSA scandal. Consensus is hard to achieve #EYMD

Joseph Cox twitterbird@josephfcoxThis big data talk is currently focus-ing on #NSA, ignoring the arguably worse #GCHQ, even while chatting about Orwell. #EYMD

Zsófia Szlamka twitterbird@zsofiaszlamkaWe don’t have to avoid the existence of big data, but we have to avoid the collection of it. #EYMD #EYE2014 #EYEstream

Slavena Zaharieva twitterbird@s_zaharievaIdea for a discussion for next time: the complex relationships between jour-nalism and PR. #EYMD #EYMD2014 #youthpress

Laure Fourquet twitterbird@laurefourquet#BringBackOurGirls Young Europe-ans are now looking at ways to pre-vent human trafficking and slavery #EYE2014 #EYMD

Julia Mardeusz twitterbird@JMardeuszInfographics, podcasts and storify, so many new things to try during media production at #EYMD during #EYE2014!

Rebecca Bengtsson twitterbird@sandrarebeccaSo, 105 of the 160 speakers at @eye2014 are men. #eymd reporting from @Europarl_EN

James Mulhall twitterbird@dodgeyjammer First event of #EYMD done and dust-ed! Bigger challenge so far: navigat-ing the maze that is the European Parliament building in Strasbourg

European Youth Press twitterbird@youthpressEYPs Sebastian Olényi @olenyi mod-erating now discussion on sustain-able fishing #EYE2014 #eymd #sus-tainability t.co/EsYsrUnNz2

youthmediadays.eu twitterbird@EYMDIt’s 23:15, and some of us are still in the EP press room - finally the pizza arrived, so we’re back in the book of the living! #yolo #EYMD

Day 3:10 May

youthmediadays.eu twitterbird@eymdVoices from the audience on the #EYE3 panel about #FutureofEurope #EUcrisis: “Do we maybe need a quo-ta for youth in parliaments?” #EYMD

European Youth Press twitterbird@youthpress “Awareness about digital rights should be taught together with digital skills in schools” - @aqbyrne #EYEstream #eymd

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Twitter and Gallery

EYMD 2014Behind the Scenes

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EYMD 2014Behind the Scenes

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Twitter and Gallery

The european YouTh Media daYs (eYMd) is an annual event organised by the European Youth Press in collaboration with the European Parliament. Over the course of three days, over 100 young journalists gather in the political heart of Europe to report on issues. The event aims to grant young journalists access to the important political institutions of the EU, deliver workshops or learning by doing experience, promote discussion and networking amongst young European journalists combined with and hands-on media production. The European Youth Media Days is one of the biggest events in Europe for young journalists.

facebook.com/youthmediadays | twitter: @EYMD

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The european YouTh press (eYp) is a network of young media makers with 26 member organisations, gathering 60,000+ young journalists. EYP strives to promote the role of youth media and the freedom of press in Europe and

beyond. EYP manages projects and events such as the European Youth Media Days, organises seminars and represents young journalists in Europe, publishes Orange Magazine and much more.

Join us! | facebook.com/youthpress | twitter: @youthpress | web: youthpress.org

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european youth pressnetwork of young media makers

Twitter and Gallery

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online:orangemagazine.eu

youthpress.org

orange magazine 1/2014 - eymd

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