vineri, 14 noiembrie 2008

My impressions about MEU Konstanz 2008 (I)

I know that there are some persons who are dying to read this on my blog, so here it is:
1. First of all, the structure of the Simulation was skillfully done by the AEGEE Konstanz Team. I would particularly mention Daniela, Jana, Ingrid, Emiliya and Mathias, because these are the organizers I mostly interacted with. They did a good job, bearing in mind that some things could have be improved...
2. Secondly, I would like to present my own opinion about some German cultural aspects: it is more likely for a non-German student in Konstanz to have a better communication with German students who already studied abroad. But this may be similar with Romanians.
3. I liked very much that there were many countries which sent their people at this Simulation. I can quicky mention few countries: Romania, Poland, France, Italy, France, Finnland, Austria. These are the countries I remember now, but of course there were about 24 European and non-European countries.
4. The Simulation was based on role playing, and that meant that some participants acted as Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), others as Ministers in the Council of the European Union, as lobbyists or as journalists.
5. Each group of participants with the same role had a chair, that is a coordinator who facilitated the communication with the Organizers. As far as I saw and understood some of the chairs were the Organizers themselves, but I am not sure whether all the chairs were part of the organizing team.
6. I played the role of the journalist of the left-oriented press. I worked together in this role with a Finnish young man who studies Political Sciences in Paris (!). I am content with the shared work we did.
7. The journalists´s chair helped us to publish two newspaper editions. The two participants acting as journalists of the conservative press published their separate newspaper, on Friday and on Saturday. We, the journalists of the left-oriented press, published as well two newspapers and the journalist of the rainbow press had to publish also two newspapers for each day of full Simulation (Friday and Saturday).
8. The newspaper for each type of press had 1 or 2 pages, including 2 to 4 articles. I have a copy of these newspapers (ours and theirs) and I will try to scan them at UNI and publish the scanned version on my blog. I will do this probably at the latest on Tuesday, 18/11/2008.
9. What I did not like about the organization of the Simulation is that at a certain moment I had to follow some rules of procedures which were not previously specified by the chair or the organizers. Let me explain: in the first day of the Simulation I agreed with my colleague that he would have to go to the meeting of the European Parliament (he did not have any troubles in getting there and hearing all the things discussed). But I had to go to the meeting of the Council, where I got kicked out twice by the chair, because ha said that journalists were not allowed to be in the room where the meeting of the Council took place. I got really upset on my chair because she did not tell me before about this. Only the third time I managed to enter that room and to listen furtively what the Ministers were talking. When I finally managed to enter the room and not to get kicked out, there were about 4 or 5 groups of Ministers talking about a proposal of Council Regulation about the abolishment of aid for energy crops. (The role of the European Commission was played by the Organizers). I only managed to get incomplete information, and I was not allowed to cite any of the Ministers in my articles, because I have done a "dirty" or underground research. So in my first article I had a lot of anonymous sources (:D) and top officials who talked to me under the condition of anonymity (:D). I repeat: I could not use their discussions in my article. I do not know if the same rule, with journalists not being allowed to participate in the meetings of the Council, applies as well to the corresponding real institutional body...But I was really upset because I had to make something according to some rules of procedures they forgot to tell me about. In the beginning, the journalists´s chair did not say anything about this. But this was for the first day, the following days were much annoying.

Nota Bene: I must also write about Hans van der Loo from Royal Dutch Shell.
To be continued
--Subject to alterations/later editing--

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