This post is quite different from others which were published so far. But the relevance of it is very high. This is email conversation which took place recently between Armin Weckmann (AEGEE-Darmstadt) and Ivan Bielik (AEGEE-Brno) with consent of both parties involved. The topic of the conversation is vanishing trust in the EU.

Moderator’s remarks

The civil war in Syria seems like a never-ending story. Two year conflict has asked its price. Let the numbers speak for a while in the introduction. The UN reckons that 70,000 Syrians, mostly civilians, have died. The true figure is probably far higher: thousands have gone missing or have been locked up. In the past few weeks an average of 5,000 people have fled every day. The UN’s High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) says the number now exceeds 860,000, but many more have left uncounted. The number displaced within the country is higher still. More than 4 million Syrians now lack fuel, electricity, a telephone line and food (The Economist).

Moderator’s remarks

During upcoming Spring Agora Rhein-Neckar 2013 Comité Directeur (abbreviation “CD”) will present one interesting and controversial proposal. Many new members of AEGEE are confused by the proposal, because they do not remember existence of regions that were abolished in 2006. Therefore, the purpose of this debate is to inform and educate the members in order to make good decision at Spring Agora by bringing arguments for and contra the proposal.

Moderator’s remarks

Compulsory voting is controversial issue in the textbooks of political science. There are 22 countries in the world where compulsory voting is part of electoral law, such as Argentina, Singapore, Brazil or Belgium. Of course, degree of enforcement varies much but this is not very important for our debate. The topic of this debate is introducing compulsory voting of European citizens in the election to the European parliament. The issue is relevant these days, because year 2013 was proclaimed as European Year of Citizens by European Commission and election into European Parliament in 2014 is important for the EU as a whole. 

Moderator’s remarks

Since we are all living in modern nation states, the question of paying taxes is relevant for all of us. One of the fundamental roles of state is its re-distributive function. In order to redistribute the wealth, people have to pay taxes which generate the revenue of state. The problem arises when we start to discuss how much every citizen will pay. Basically, there are three types of tax systems. First, progressive system of taxes means that the more you earn, the more you contribute on taxes. Second, proportional tax system means that the state imposes the same rate of taxation regardless of income. Third, regressive tax system is the opposite of progressive system. That means the more you earn the less you contribute to running of the state.