The 60th Anniversary of the Congress of Europe

Pat Cox (Micha's phone)

Micha and I

What is it?

I participated in the Congress of Europe 23-24.5.2008 in the Hague. I represented the European Youth Parliament in Finland. The Congress served as the 60th anniversary of the Famous Congress of 1948, presided over by Winston Churchill himself. Now we had the grand daughter of Mr. Churchill present in her purple cabaret outfits, but the Congress was presided by Pat Cox, President of the European Movement (EM) and former President of the European Parliament. The idea was to vote for the 60 best ideas of those proposed by civil society before the congress and discuss those in working groups. The voting procedure was rather strange, though... Prince Constantijn of the Netherlands was present at the opening ceremony. The opening panel consisted of four former Young Europeans of the Year (selected by the Heinz-Schwarzkopf Stiftung by the way!) and Michael Zeeman (essayist and broadcaster) and a participant of the 1948 Congress, Jean-Pierre Gouzy. Mr. Gouzy was very worried about the role of French as an official language in the EU. The young Europeans were very interesting and inspiring to listen to.

EYPers Micha and Cecilia

Political Europe

My working group was on Political Europe. There were five main themes on the basis of voting: 1) Energy and climate change 2) Security and foreign policy 3) EU citizenship 4) Democracy 5) Human rights protection. I was rather disappointed with the topics as I had voted completely differently. I was way more interested in the institutional aspects and the Lisbon Treaty for example. Well, I guess "civil society" decided, as it was so extremely well represented by hundreds of old, grey, bald men. I felt extremely young and feminine in this place. Elmar Brok (German MEP, who arrived very late!) was the keynote speaker and we were moderated by Riivo Sinijärv (President of EM Estonia, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs) and our rapporteur was Michael Stabenow (correspondent for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). It was very cool to see him in person, as I had just compared the Frankfurter Allgemeine (right-wing) with the Süddeutsche Zeitung (left-wing) for an assignment of International Comparative Democracy.

I was rather shocked by the quality of the working group. All these smart, famous Europeans could only discuss about the ways of discussing, about the need to discuss something or the importance or sillyness of a topic. I really didn't learn anything, and I was shocked about the institutional nonsense that was going around. I mean, just the fact that the European Council is the body that represents the Members States and their governments, and that the Parliament is the body that represents the citizens was not really understood. Or at least so it seemed. I noted that the European Youth Parliament is way more capable of producing something as a result of a discussion of one hour than we did during an entire day. Maybe my product-orientation is very Finnish, too...

Elmar Brok

I liked Elmar Brok's opening speech, though. He stressed the fact that certain questions cannot be solved by the Member States alone. Like Jacques Delors once said: "We have to win the future together." He said that Medvedev is laughing at us in Moscow about the energy issues, as we started talking about them three years ago, but nothing has happened ever since. We have to work in a clearer manner, because otherwise we lose support. I didn't quite agree with the following he said: "Consolidation, less legislation, less enlargement (I think that the EU is ready for enlargement!), and more concentration on the issues we have on the table right now." He presented an interesting line of thought:

1) Churchill had a dream of the United States of Europe.
2) Monnet talked about the "solidarity of facts".
3) We should combine the dream and the facts.

Elmar Brok (Micha's mobile)

It is important to explain why Europe is good for the citizens. Right now we have a Union of states and citizens where the states are still more powerful through the Council. The first European elections (well, if Lisbon is gonna work out...) are taking place in 2009, and there the Council can only propose, which implies more power to the citizens (the Parliament). Another level of participation should be stressed, too: informal citizenship. According to Brok there are three main things the Union has the work on: transparency, democracy and efficiency. The Treaty of Lisbon (!) would be a progress. Brok also said that nothing is more convincing than success. We should show that the EU makes a difference. We should "force the national Parliaments to tell the truth. When it's raining it is the fault of Brussels. When the sun shines, Berlin can be praised." He said that the EU is cheaper to Germany than its army, which costs 27 billion € a year. He supports a two-chamber system and a federal Europe like I do. Very nice, I like!

Common Foreign and Security Policy

An interesting thing that came up in the discussions was the talk about the common foreign and security policy (CFSP). Some people actively talked about the need for a new kind of power in addition to hard power; soft power (civilian power), which would some sort of "philosophical power". Also, the EU should lead the transformation of the United Nations. The talk about enlargement was very heated and I disagreed to a great extend with what was said against further enlargement. I agreed, however, that the "open door policy" in the Lisbon Treaty is the right way to go, and that enlargement has been one of the most successful policies of the EU. Everything can change if you overdose it. Some said that 12 new members would destroy the Union. I don't know about that. But I think that the European Neighbourhood Policy is a good thing to have. It's just: do states want to be part of it if there is no membership carrot? This has a lot to do with what we discussed at the Think Tank under Ferrero-Waldner in December (see December).

Citizenship

Me in front of the Niewe Kerk where the Congress was held (Micha)

Then we talked about citizenship and the President of the Council, for example. Like Brok, I am also against his/her (btw. Check the campaign for nominating women for the candidacy http://www.femalesinfront.eu/default.asp?view=front&lang=gb) election by the people. The Council represents the Member States, the Parliament the people. The President shouldn't have any operational functions, because that is for the Commission. This has a lot to do with the committee I chaired together with Ingo at the German National Session of EYP in Frankfurt. The committee agreed that the President should be there for the citizens, not a mediator between the states, or a foreign representative. More about the German Nationals later, though! I also definitely think that the elections in 2009 should be as interesting for our citizens as the presidential elections in the United States. Another funny thing that was said was that "the EU is not interesting, because it produces only good news".

Balkenende (Micha's phone)

Overall, the working group was a disappointment, like I said. I did realise that there is a huge need for a generation shift in European affairs, and getting some women to the front wouldn' t be bad at all. It was funny when we went to the ladies' room with Anna-Maija, a lovely Finnish girl I met, and an old lady came up to us saying: "Why is it that the women interested in the EU are always very few, young, and beautiful, and the men always old and ugly." Thanks old lady!

The Finnish girls (Micha's phone)

Another thing that stroke me, was the incapability of actually formating some sort of result of the discussion. Well, when the EYPers are making decisions one day, we'll first play the coin game, and then produce some good results. I mean how can you talk about energy and climate change without mentioning renewable energy resources...? In the evening we still had a reception at the City Council of the Hague, and the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Balkenende, delivered a speech, cool! I also talked a lot with Dr. Alan Flowers (National Co-ordinator of EYP Belarus) about the situation in Belarus and some old and new friends from the Young European Federalists (JEF). We met at the European Parliament with EYP and JEF Finland in Brussels last weekend. More about that later...

Second day: Hardcore speakers

On the second day of the Congress we had these speakers in the panel:


Hans-Gert Pöttering, President of the European Parliament
Janez Janša, Prime Minister of Slovenia EU Slovenian Presidency
José Manuel Durao Barroso, President of the European Commission
Javier Solana, Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union (HE DIDN'T SHOW UP!)
Lluís Maria de Puig, President of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (NEITHER DID HE!)
Dimitris Dimitriadis, President of the EESC
Luc van den Brande, President of the Committee of the Regions

The Leaders (Micha's phone)

Prins Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands was there as a guest

European People’s Party:

Wilfried Martens, President
Othmar Karas, Vice-Chairman EPP-ED
Group

Party of European Socialists:

Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, President
Martin Schulz, President Socialist
Group

European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party:

Annemie Neyts-Uyttebroek, President
Graham Watson, President ALDE Group

European Green Party:

Philippe Lamberts, co-President

I asked a question on TV, because the moderator, Quentil Peel, the International Affairs Editor of the Financial Times wanted a young woman on TV... I was really nervous! It was so stupid. I am never nervous for these kinds of things, but it came so suddenly. I wasn't allowed to speak at the time I was supposed to and I left out quite a bit of what I wanted to say. Anyway, I said that we are on the right track when it comes to exchange programmes and the Bologna Process (these were things that the oldies wanted to discuss in the Social and Economic working group!) provides us youngsters with sufficient opportunities. However, I expressed my concern about the difficulty of getting jobs for young (professional) people both in my case Finland and the EU institutions. It is not really rewarded that people study abroad, because the institutions in the native countries do not appreciate foreign degrees. The European labour market is very harsh for young professionals. I asked what the European leaders would do to increase the value of truly European young professionals on the European labour market. Only the President of the ALDE group, Graham Watson gave me some sort of clear answer.

To my joy some good things were said by these leaders. For example, Barroso said that the President of the Commission should not be elected by the people, because the Commission cannot be compared to a national government. The President of the Commission cannot select his own government (Commission). I must say, by the way, that Barroso is an extremely inspiring speaker! An interesting thought raised was that by Poul Nyrup Rasmussen of also getting Blue Cards to blue collar workers, in branches where these are needed. All the leaders stressed that the 2009 elections should get a lot of visibility and the political parties should campaign actively, and set their presidential candidates. I was aprticularlu happy when they mentioned the European Youth Parliament as a good project (Annemie Neyts-Uyttebroek), and the need for European history books that portray our common history.

Any other businesses

Well, Kokoomus (the National Coalition Party) had it's party gathering in Tampere last week, and I am very happy with the selected officials. The adorable Jyrki Katainen is continuing as the President. The UEFA 2008 is going strong right now, and I am supporting Germany to the final. I am fine with Sweden and the Netherlands, too. I am still sad about the Lisbon Treaty and I am going to Finland on Thursday. Over and out. Next time shorter.