Youth urge leaders at Durban conference: GET IT DONE!

As the Durban climate conference is going into its last negotiations (follow them at the tag #COP17 on Twitter or via Google News), young people have been given the floor to speak on behalf of global youths, representing half of the world's population.

Global Youth's message to Durban is perfectly clear: Failing in climate negotiations is the "most stark betrayal" that a generation can commit against following generations. And its message is perfectly simple: GET IT DONE!

Youths challenge European leaders on EU foreign policy

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. 

Finally - a debate about the future of the European Union in Germany

For one and a half years, debates on the European Union in Germany could be largely summed up as "we always pay, we never get anything back". Not only is this wrong, the pure limitation to financial aspects also obstructed the view upon a more important question: In a world where the European Union "will account for only 18% of world GDP in 2020, signifying a decline of 28%" compared with 2000 levels, are citizens prepared to give the EU strong multilateral institutions? This question has long been left unanswered in Germany. The Lisbon treaty was nodded off without debate.

Thanks to finance minister Schäuble, the debate now seems to take a new turn. Schäuble has always been one of the most fervent supporters of more European integration. After his initiatives for a European Monetary Fund (more or less granted), a European rating agency (still negotiated) and an economic government for the Eurozone (granted), the German finance minister yesterday pursued that the answer to the European debt crisis can only be more Europe. For once, I've got the feeling that the debate is not directed against fellow European countries but towards the degree of competence to be given to Brussels.

Chancellor Angela Merkel gave a one-hour televised live interview last week in which she explained the reasons behind the EFSF. This doesn't happen very often, and it may have given many people a new view upon the EU and Germany's role in. People begin to understand that the country profits a lot from European integration and stronger institutions do not necessarily mean less democracy.

The time is right to pursue this debate and to wonder what Europe will look like in the future. Bavaria's CSU, in dire need of voter support, warns against a "European superstate", but it was apparent from the EFSF vote last week that there is room for more Europe in large parts of CDU, Social Democrats and Greens.

Unnoticed by many, chief German constitutional lawyer Andreas Voßkuhle recently gave an interview in which he predicted (14min30) that Germany may pave the way for stronger European institutions (within the next 10-20 years, roundabout), and give itself a new constitution to accommodate these changes. The time hasn't come for such a quantum leap, but I've got the feeling politicians start laying out the cobble stones to get there.

I hope that there will be an honest debate about the future of the EU, not only in the Parliament but also in the public sphere. After Schäuble started the debate, the next few days will show if other parties are prepared to exchange some serious arguments on this.