20th Birthday of the Maastricht Treaty: towards more European solidarity and stability in times of economic turmoil

ImageIn light of the ECB announcement to start a conditional but unlimited bond-buying program, the state of the union of Barosso in which he announced to work for closer integration, the loss of the extreme Eurosceptic parties in the Netherlands and the ruling of the German constitutional court, one could easily become optimistic in regard to the prevailing European challenges. Alas, the Eurocrisis lingers on and the centripetal economic and nationalistic forces are slowly disintegrating the European Union with little efforts to stall, let alone reverse the process.

                                                       Written by Mathias Maertens, JEF Belgium Political Secretary

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Young European Peers

European federalism? How to imagine that? What about: 35 young people, from 7 different countries, 11 days together, in one of the main cities of Europe: Berlin.

Sounds good, no?

Thanks to the help of the Ghent local section of JEF, I was able to apply for Youth in Action, a programme of the EU which gives grants to youth initiatives, together with six people from several countries around Europe. Norway, Luxembourg, Bosnia&Herzegovina, Armenia, Belgium, Greece and Germany, where the project was held. Each country delegation had one mentor, one of us, the organising team, and four participants. Everybody, including the mentors, was older than 16 and younger than 20!

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