Fed up with widespread political apathy of the young generation, the editors of the European blog Europe & Me dared a bet: If they could mobilize 10,000 young Europeans to fill out a 4-minute survey on European Foreign Policy, its results will be presented at the Berlin Forum on Foreign Policy organized by the German foreign ministry, and discussed with European foreign ministers.
The survey not only asks young people to state their perception of current EU Foreign Policy ("who do you perceive to be the most prominent actor?", "is EU foreign policy easy to follow?") but also asks what young people perceive to be the most important challenges for the EU in the future.
At the time of writing this blogpost, there are just about seven days left to complete the survey. Might I invite you to give your opinion as well?
Some young Europeans, by the way, are not idle and politically apathetic at all: The European Youth Forum, together with MEP Emilie Turunen, the Young European Federalists (JEF) and other partners, are drafting a Quality charter for internships at the request of the European Parliament. Once this charter is established, every intern will be able to hold up a document to his future employer and demand his rights as they are written down.
I didn't get why it's worth filling out a survey just for the sake of it. And the content of the survey is strange and doesn't concern me, even as someone interested in EU politics.
ReplyDeleteHey Ron,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment. On the content - We were aiming to discover young European's opinions on the future of European Foreign policy.- so your lack of interest is itself an interesting outcome!
We're working hard to make sure the survey DOES have an impact. Firstly at the forum itslef. Last night we also had a conference in which we were already discussing ways to make sure the information was shared not just with politicians but with wider political, social, and journalistic spheres - in particular on the internet!
On this one, I have to agree with Ron. I answered to it, but it doesn't really concern me. I found it to make things a bit too simple. And there is no direct impact on such results on the actual Foreign Policy itself. Or at least it's not really clear to me.... when I answer to the survey.
ReplyDeleteEurope&Me made a good effort, but I would say that there can be better ways.
On another note, the Charter on Quality Internships has been drafted and is available online: www.qualityinternships.eu
Most of it was actually based on the results of a survey as well, which analysis can be found here: http://issuu.com/yomag/docs/yfj_internsrevealed_web