JEF Belgium

March 21, 2013May 2, 2021

Report: JEF Ghent Simulation of the European Council

When the current board of JEF Ghent got elected, one of the main goals was to organise a simulation of the

JEF Ghent board with guest speakers Karel De Gucht (center) and Pieter Verhelst (3rd from right)

European Council. Months of preparation finally accummulated in two days. One day of simulating the European Council, preceded by an evening reception on March 15th.

After a short introduction on JEF Ghent by our president Laura Corbett, the “getting-to-know-each-other” reception on Friday evening was opened with a speech by the European Commissioner for Trade, Karel De Gucht. The Commissioner spoke about his previous experiences within the Council and how a consensus was formed at the negotiation table. Pieter Verhelst, advisor on International and European policy for the Farmers League, gave a lecture on the current situation of the common agricultural policy. Since the CAP isn’t a subject that is widely known, the presentation was a welcomed crash course on the subject. The reception was also the first moment our participants could start to connect with like-minded heads of government in an informal manner.

Saturday, early in the morning, the real simulation started. This is what transpired…

Ghent hosts European Council for second time

Ghent, March 16th – This morning the summit of the European Council gathered in Ghent. After the arrival and the informal reception yesterday, the heads of state and government had a full agenda of difficult topics to get through. The Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and European Security Strategy (ESS) were the obstacles to conquer for the participants.

The European summit, without a bed-ridden Latvian and an ill Belgian prime-minister, immediately started with the MFF dossier. The main goal of the Council was to counter the criticism stated by the Parliament – for the Simulation, we created our own Parliamentary reaction (ed.). According to some inside sources, the negotiations didn’t start of on a constructive basis and even previously agreed issues were brought back to the negotiation table, which led to a stand-off between two clearly divided groups. President Janssen of the European Commission was overheard saying, and I quote, “the Council would do well to focus on the issues at hand, instead of creating new ones”. A round of bilateral and informal contacts brought the two groups back together.

Up until this point, it was still very unclear where, even if, the European Council would be able to meet some of the terms put forward by the Parliament. Some countries, Finland among them, did say that there were still savings to be made on the budget for the functioning of the Commission, and that one less Commissioner would save a lot of money. Although the southern member states were happy to put Oli Rehn forward as the one to be sacked, the idea was eventually let go.

Before lunch, a consensus was still a long way off. The President of the Council, De Waele, adjourned the meeting, but not before stating that the lunch time should be used wisely and “to reflect on the issues at hand, and reconvene with a more constructive state of mind”. The words of the De Waele did have the desired effect.

Meeting in the middle
The Parliament’s questions concerning the MFF were to be taken seriously, and that’s why the Council re-emphasised its commitment towards creating growth and jobs. The initial proposal of the presiding member state, Ireland, to lower the budget for the CAP and infuse it directly into the Cohesion Fund was met with French resistance. However, on suggestion of the Commission, a package deal was made.

The first part of the deal was based in drawing up a new policy framework for the CAP. The main issue here, was that an agreement was found in order to diminish the market corrections in different phases. The second part of the deal was the reallocation of the policy objective of territorial cohesion from the Cohesion Fund to the CAP. Within the CAP, this would be funded with means made available through reducing market corrections, thus freeing up extra finances in the Cohesion Fund. These new resources ought to be directly reallocated to tackle the staggering (youth) unemployment rates the Union is currently dealing with.

Nothing new for security
It seems that our leaders are still somewhat reluctant to share their military capabilities in order to strengthen the European Union’s security. There was absolutely no room for any consensus stretching beyond a declaration of intent on the issues of pooling military equipment, continued support for the EEAS and supporting peace-keeping operations. The subject of Syria was quickly disposed of and passed on to the Foreign Affairs Council.

Facing Challenges
Even though all the heads of state and government seemed happy with the outcome of the simulation, it is very clear that the current state of the European Union is still worrisome at best. Many more challenges lay ahead in order to gain back the citizen’s trust.

Official family photo of the participants

On a personal note: I want to thank all the participants for their contributions during the simulation. They made the day exciting and fun. But the final thanks have to go the JEF Ghent team. We all put a lot of time, effort and energy into this. It was fantastic to see it all go as we hoped. It was great to work with you (organisers and participants) all!!

Notes:
The official conclusions of the simulation can be found here (Dutch only unfortunately).
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March 20, 2013May 2, 2021

Special Report: JEF Belgium Training Days 2013

JEF Brussels member Hamza Serry-Senhaji, our new regular columnist, has written an action-packed report for all those who have missed two life-changing days with a group of enthusiastic European federalists. Curious about how it unfolded? Read on.

The JEF Belgium Training Days

On Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th of March, JEF Belgium organized the third edition of its “Training Days” in no other city than Brussels, the capital of the European Union.

Around 30 young Europeans gathered at the event with the aim of improving their communication and debating skills and also to learn about the history, the goals, the diversity of our movement and what it means to be a young European federalist.

As an active fresh member of JEF Brussels, I thought that it would be a great opportunity for me to learn more about the movement, how we can communicate our message more effectively to our fellow European citizens and of course to meet and exchange thoughts with other JEFers.

The Training Days definitely met my expectations. The TDs were divided into two separate themes, “Being Young, European and federalist “ on Saturday and “Activism and engagement” on Sunday.

Saturday: “Being Young, European and federalist”

Saturday was mainly themed around the history of European federalism and debates on European issues. After the participants arrived and registered, it was time to start the day with an introduction and a quick history of the European Movement, JEF Belgium, JEF Europe and the UEF.

Then it was time for a history hour on American federalism with Professor Leo Klinkers from the Netherlands, an expert in public policy and a co-author of the European federalist papers.

BrainstormingPhoto: Christian Weickhmann — Brainstorming
*Photo: Christian Weickhmann*

Going through his lecture using a pointing stick and a rigorous academic approach, Prof. Klinkers made it very clear to us what a vertical distribution of power means and gave us a brief presentation on American federalism, making a case for why the European constitution should resemble the American one. He also made a strong case against the Lisbon Treaty, told us why we should reject it and nonchalantly cursed its existence.

Following this lecture, it was time for a presentation on the past, the present and the future federalist struggles in the EU by European Federalist activists Monica and Matteo. It was interesting to learn what the roots of our movement are and to get to know our past achievements, such as the directly elected European parliament, the Maastricht treaty, the euro… and of course learn of our past failures in the struggle, the prime example being the common European defense policy.

The afternoon was mainly themed around a wide range of debate topics. We had the opportunity to discuss the topic “A Social Europe and what it means to us” with the EU MEP Kathleen van Brempt.
It was followed by a debate between two young Belgian political representatives. There were some heated partisan (liberal-socialist) debates on heavyweight topics like “Introduction of a European minimum wage”, “Austerity vs. Growth”, “The EU spends too much money”, “The Erasmus generation is a lost generation” and so forth. We debated lots of topics and I found that there were different perspectives and a diversity of opinion among us.

Beyond this ideological divide, we found that at the end of the day, what we need is more Europe. A fiscal union is necessary condition but not a sufficient one to solve our woes. What we need is a full integration of Europe into a federation. We may disagree on some issues, on the reasons to be federalist and on the way to achieve a united Europe, but we all agree that the United States of Europe is the endgame, a continent where people are united in diversity.

Federalist Media WorkshopPhoto: Christian Weickhmann — Federalist Media Workshop
*Photo: Christian Weickhmann*

The JEF Training Days are not just about serious political discussions but also about having fun, meeting new people, eating waffles and overheated lasagnas. We ended the day in a local pub and had a great time.

Sunday: “Activism and Engagement”

After a difficult wake-up and a breakfast, it was time to get on with our second topic “activism and engagements”. Its main aim was improving the functioning of our local JEF sections and how to communicate our messages more effectively to the European citizens.

We started with a workshop, aimed at improving our fundraising, recruiting and communication activities. Some very interesting ideas and techniques came up while we exchanged positive and negative experience from our local sections in that matter.

The next workshop was about media training. I learned the importance of making a message understandable even to a grandma, to make the distinction between an interesting story vs. a story of interest and the way to interact with journalists in order to get more media coverage.

Following both workshops, it was time for a brainstorming session on the upcoming 2014 EU election. The session was about how we can prepare and raise the awareness of the citizens for the next year’s EU election. Very interesting ideas came up, e.g. “making the EU MEPs sign a pledge in favor of a federal Europe, analogous to the pledge Grover Norquist made the Republicans sign in the USA”, “raise the participation rate of young voters by actively campaigning in the schools, the universities, the scouts and other organizations”, “making a website where MEPs are graded on how pro-European they really are” and many other great ideas.

Creating the Masterplan.Photo: Christian Weickhmann — Creating the Masterplan.
*Photo: Christian Weickhmann*

The Training Days ended with the annual general assembly of JEF Belgium where we elected a new board and jovially sang this “Europe United” song which doesn’t rhyme all that well – at least in my humble opinion. Nonetheless, the whole event was certainly worth participating in.
During that weekend, I met people with diverse political backgrounds and visions of Europe, some were social-democrats others liberals. Some were against the austerity measures, others were in favor but we converged to the fact that what we need is more Europe and now more than ever.

I made new friends, enjoyed our discussions and would like to thank the team that managed the event! I also would like to wish the newly elected board of JEF Belgium good luck and wish them success!