Active Citizenship

Since its foundation, AEGEE’s members have been expressing their opinion as active young people. Keeping up to date with the current situation on our continent, AEGEE puts social and political issues on the agenda of its discussions and addresses topics such as globalization, disabilities, white papers of the European Commission and ethnic conflicts, taking every opportunity to influence the development of the society we live in.

Back in 1987, the European market was far from being accomplished. This was when AEGEE started a pilot project to create a European market-place where companies looking for 'Euromanagers' could meet students that were looking for careers according to their European education. At first try AEGEE organized eight events around Europe. In 1988 "Euromanagers Forum & Congress” was organized in Brussels, being a remarkable success in AEGEE-Europe's sphere of influence.

In 1992, the members of the European Community signed the Treaty of Maastricht and took the most important step in the development of European integration. This treaty and its revisions being made until mid-nineties were focus of Symposia and conferences on the fields of European policy: being held – guess where – in Maastricht – where all started…

Three years later, in 1995, AEGEE had a look on the new EUROPEAN UNION IN GENERAL. With this one-day symposium, Maastricht revisited. On the revision of the Treaty of Maastricht, AEGEE started a row of conferences on the fields of European policy: the Treaty of Maastricht, the Monetary Union, the European Enlargement and the common Foreign and Security Policy. This first symposium was meant to present a general overview on the topics for the IGC, thus creating discussion on the way to go. It consisted of informing lectures, introductions of panel-members and finally a panel-discussion.

One of the most discussed issues in countries of Central and Eastern Europe was how to build a civil society. In 1996 our association prepared the project Find Your Way to and within Open Society which gave 800 students from the respective regions the opportunities to investigate this issue in a series of nine events, to develop their democratic experience.

In the same year, AEGEE started the project The Intergovernmental Conference. It comprised a series of conferences and a network of local events, involving students throughout whole Europe aiming at fostering the involvement of the Young European Citizens in the European issues. Besides lectures on the IGC, especially the active contribution was stimulated through debates, workshops and podium discussions. The results and ideas produced during this and the other conferences were summarized during the Final Conference ‘A step towards Europe - the IGC, a decisive challenge for Europe’, taking place in Maastricht May 9th-11th, 1996.

Moreover, AEGEE was participating in the public hearing of the European Parliament on February 26th-27th, 1996, representing European students as one of the largest pan-European student organizations. During this Intergovernmental Conference “Keeping in touch with the public” on February 26, Tina Dörffer held a speech on behalf of AEGEE Europe.

As a step beyond the general analyses of the EU, AEGEE focused the differences between Eastern and Western European countries. While some countries were facing the problem of losing competitiveness and increasing rates of unemployment, in other countries poverty and the difficult transformation process to a democratic society were the main problems. AEGEE wanted to share a common responsibility for what is happening anywhere in Europe. Its concept for the future was co-operation as a process towards integration. Yet fruitful co-operation needs understanding - understanding of each other - and communication leads to understanding. The “Understanding Europe” symposia on the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy offered these platforms for communication, for discussions between students from different countries in Europe. The Symposia Ankara-Delft-Mainz included three conferences: Understanding Europe, Delft/Utrecht in February 1996, Nationality European? München/Mainz-Wiesbaden in March 1996.

The European enlargement stayed on top of the Agenda during the whole year of 1996. The congress Direction Europe! Enlargement of E.U. was entirely devoted to the matters of the enlargement of E.U. Its purpose was to focus on a wide scope of problems which arise in Central and Eastern European countries and ought to be solved if the European Union was going to enlarge further to the East. The aim was to present the every problem from many points of view, often very different from each other. The Direction Europe! session was composed of two lectures, one Round Table, six panels and nine workshops. Altogether - 16 busy hours. The forum of participants comprised about 100 students that have come from 18 different European cities, and from 12 European countries.

The moderating method used by the organisers in the workshops was democratic, as far as everybody was involved, decentralised, as all the knowledge existing among the participants has been used, group oriented - evaluating the opinion of a group, not persons. The moderators weren't the leaders of the discussions but only supported the participants while they formed their own opinion.

In 1997 and the beginning of 1998, AEGEE has organised one of the most successful projects: "Europe and Euro". With conferences, seminars, local events and an essay competition, our organization has successfully managed an information campaign for young people, concerning the EMU and the introduction of a single currency, the Euro.
In its biggest project ever so far AEGEE has successfully managed an information campaign for young people, concerning the European Monetary Union (EMU) and the introduction of a single currency, the Euro. With the support of the European Commission, AEGEE took the opportunity to inform them about the implications and possible consequences of the EMU. As the EMU would have a huge impact on our society, it was the young generation that had to be involved actively and to be informed objectively. With five conferences, two seminars and local events, spread out all over Europe, AEGEE actively wanted to discuss the EMU and to prepare the next generation. AEGEE organised five thematic conferences, each of them covering a different aspect of the European Monetary Union, which were analysed during the introductory conference in Rotterdam. Every three-day-conference was designed for a broader public of about 200 participants. The final conference "The Euro is coming to get you! Be prepared!", taking place in Eindhoven, was a summary of the whole series of events and presented all the results of the conferences, the seminar-debates and the local events. Some of the best speakers of all the previous events were invited again. The final conference was designed for a wider public of about 300 participants.
Additionally to conferences and seminars, AEGEE organized an essay competition for young people in Europe about the EMU and the introduction of the euro. In order to make students and pupils aware of the EMU and its implications, AEGEE asked young people to write down their thoughts, expectations, hopes and fears concerning the EMU. On the 2nd of March 1998, the final evaluation took place in Brussels. The panel members were: Graham Watson, MEP Jacky Davis, Editor European Voice, Günther Pauls, European Commission, DG X, Euro task force, Pascaline Wynand, Professor Institute European Studies, Franck Biancheri, president Prometheus-Europe and founder AEGEE. The panel members selected six essays. The winners were invited to Brussels to receive their prices.

After this economic focus, AEGEE concentrated on the European scope of education and sustainable development in 1998. The Student’s Forum initiated a series of nine conferences entitled "Building a Social Europe" (BASE) to compare the different social structures and to focus on issues as unemployment and crime in order to contribute to their improvement. "It is time for young European citizens to state their opinion and define which problems and possible solutions they envisage", says Sanne Haaksma from AEGEE-Enschede, BASE co-ordinator. "Our nine events should give young people all over Europe the chance to be involved in the construction of the European house which should be based on social foundations," states Sanne.
The project dealt with five main topics: "Education and Employment", "Security and Criminality", "Sustainable Development", and, "Equal Chances and Individuals in Europe". In total, seven conferences and seminars took place in the East and the West of Europe, in order to analyse the problems from both sides. In addition, the event organizers improved their skills during a training course in Eger, Hungary. Furthermore, during a study visit to the multicultural region of Banat in Romania, students received to chance to talk with different ethnic groups with a variety of problems.

In 1999, AEGEE celebrated and reminded of Ten Years of Transition, which also meant ten years of overcoming the division of the continent. The year 1989 meant a significant change not only for Europe in general but also for AEGEE: contacts with East German students were already being made in 1989. Today, a significant part of the members lives and studies in countries such as Poland, Ukraine, Romania and Hungary.
"The importance of the changes in the East and the meaning these changes had for our organisation made it impossible to neglect this topic. So we formulated a series of conferences entitled 'Ten Years of Transition”, explains project co-ordinator Frank Burgdörfer. To this end:

• AEGEE-Lviv organised a Summer University in a country in transition but outside the scope of the institutionalised European Integration. "Prywit Ukraine - Ukraine where are you now?" gave young Europeans from more than ten different countries, impressions of a country still trying to find and define itself.
• AEGEE-Timisoara held a conference entitled "The Birthpains of Democracy". Since democracy in this country was not reached by peaceful protests, the changes that occurred did not lead to the results people had hoped for and they are now disillusioned. Their aim then was to proceed on the path towards European integration.
• AEGEE-Gdansk provided the strongest contrast possible to this. Pride was the dominant feeling the organisers conveyed to the participants. Being the forerunner of protests such as the ones of Timisoara in Romania, Gdansk became a symbol for a peaceful change.
• AEGEE-Berlin helped with understanding the very special conditions in Germany. The city of the wall which symbolises the division of the continent became once again the capital of a leading European country. In Berlin, as in whole Germany, two societies merged, leading to a confrontation of different mentalities, experiences and educational backgrounds.

"The project has shown once more how common aspects in general and significant differences in detail can go hand in hand in Europe", summarises Frank Burgdörfer. "However, despite any doubts or problems that may have arisen, nobody has questioned the general aim of these countries to become a stable and prosperous element of an integrated Europe."

Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, dividing Europe, mobility within the continent has been much encouraged. At the same time, access into the EU was ally discouraged. For AEGEE, student mobility is the centre of its work and has become part of its everyday commitment to work for European integration. Yet who really knows what this is all about? Who knows how well legislation and administration have been adapted to the requirements for better mobility of the European people? What happens when people really dare to leave their native country and work, study or retire somewhere else in Europe? These were the questions, crucial for AEGEE’s main project in 2000: Borderless Europe. Knowing that very often it is not enough to remove physical borders, the organizers tried to overcome the existing mental borders between people from different European countries.
The activities being organised within the project reached more than 3,000 young Europeans and more than 500 stakeholders of the European society who could discover the role and position that the concept of a Borderless Europe has obtained both in their personal lives and the societies they were living in. Furthermore, it has provided a platform for expressing visions for a truly Borderless Europe, being directed towards all European citizens. By performing it AEGEE wanted to identify possible obstacles to mobility and how they could have been overcome.
In thematic conferences focused on two main components: one was concentrating on the background, the philosophical and psychological aspects of a Borderless Europe, the second focusing on practical questions, analyzing the aims and outcomes of the SOKRATES programme, discussing the chances, risks and obstacles of working in another EU-country, discussing and also criticizing the Visa-procedures in various countries. This is still being done by the Visa Freedom Fighters, a working group of AEGEE.

Within a borderless Europe, not only student’s mobility is of interest. During its project Global Employee, being organized in 2002, a group of truly European students worked together with experts on the current status and future challenges and opportunities for the Job Market in Europe. In co-operation with the Foundation Global Employee, AEGEE analyzed the chances and risks of the global job market.

The discussions concerning the debate on the future of Europe started in 2002. Brussels was overwhelmed with animated dialogue, all of them revolving around the same topics, from the improvement of the EU’s work to talks on the Euro’s impact on economic developments. With its project Universities to Debate Europe (2002), AEGEE aimed at encouraging a debate about the future of Europe involving predominantly the academic world. Based on policy research, students with support of universities and professors held debates, seminars and conferences, striving to present in the end a declaration by the academic world.
In this open debate everyone had the right to have a saying. Students –and not only students- should get to know that the year 2004 would be crucial for our society, as ten more countries would be joining the European Union. This immense chance would most likely imply that some of the current working structures would have to be changed, and it would affect in the end the life of most of today’s students. Amongst these changes, the Education in Europe is also in a moment of essential developments towards a more competitive and international scheme, and AEGEE wanted – and still wants - to include this point as well inside the debate that we propose to you.
But what is the use of information if students cannot participate in the discussion? Well, for this reason AEGEE decided to involve as many students as possible. To realize this aim easily, AEGEE brought the debates to the campus. At many universities, in various local languages through many student organisations that were working on the project, through junior enterprises or through student unions, AEGEE was organising debates in around a hundred locations in Europe, always being close to students All in all, more than 100 events were organized, involving more than 25, 000 students.

Discussed and prepared for years, the 2004 EU enlargement had a major impact on the relationships between different European countries and the EU within its new borders. It also had influenced AEGEE’s work whose yearplan project 2004 focused on "EU & Europe". Their work aimed at discussing questions of identity both for the countries that remain outside these new borders and for the EU. Throughout the year, the multinational project team analysed different aspects of identity with reference to particular countries or regions, put together due to their similar relations with the EU, such as the Balkans, EFTA, Russia or Turkey. The starting point was the conference entitled "Europe’s (Torn?) Identity" held in Ljubljana in October 2003. 42 participants were discussing their local, regional, national, European and personal identity. They agreed that the overall goals for the "EU & Europe" project should be to:

• present the characteristics of each of the target regions and, consequently, challenge stereotypes about them
• discuss possible definitions of what Europe is in terms of geography, customs, politics and culture
• debate on the role the EU has in Europe through the relations it develops with the other countries / regions
• explore possibilities of action concerning the recently drafted "Wider Europe – Neighbourhood: A New Framework for the Relations with our Eastern and South-eastern Neighbours" of the European Commission (March 2003)

The project consisted of a series of six seminars taking place in different parts of Europe, including important EU neighbours such as Belarus (Minsk), Russia (Moskva and St. Petersburg), Romania (Cluj-Napoca), Turkey and the Western Balkans (Banja Luka, Sarajevo). The conferences were accompanied by preparatory activities, a survey / knowledge contest about the European Union, additional workshops and publications.
About 300 participants in total acquired a deeper knowledge and understanding of the target regions and developed more positive attitudes towards the EU, European integration and international co-operation. Through this project, AEGEE wants to contribute to the shaping of a European identity that is not limited to the territory of the European Union.

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Published on: 2005-06-20 (235 reads)