On the 15th of June, the ECI Task Force had an open Skype meeting, where all interested AEGEE members could ask their questions about this initiative to the members working on it. To recap: the ECI was launched on the 6th of October 2016 to call upon the European Commission to support EU member states in their responsibility to provide for civic education in school curricula, as an important tool for a democratic society. One million signatures are needed before the Commission takes our call into account.

Why does the ECI not even have as many signatures as AEGEE members?

First of all, not every AEGEE member is able to sign the ECI, only EU citizens can sign. In order to enable non-EU citizens to express their support with the ECI, there is a petition created, however these signatures don’t count in the necessary one million.

A second reason is that it is impossible to communicate with all AEGEE members. We tried all channels that exist (Facebook, mailing lists, The AEGEEan, Europe on Track and other projects, conferences, statutory events, NWM, soon SUs), however, even with the help of NetCom, we faced difficulties in convincing boards to inform their members about the ECI. Of course we also cannot force members to sign.

Lastly, it is important to note that the signature registration system is very little user-friendly and requires extensive private data from the signatories, which may dissuade people to sign. This can be an additional reason.

Still, we believe that we had an impact on the Network: many people (at least those active on the European level) learnt about the ECI and acquired more understanding and awareness about civic education.

How is it possible that other ECI manage to collect one million signatures within a few months and we are not able to?

In contrast to AEGEE, the NGOs behind those ECIs have much more financial resources and they do huge PR campaigns. It is estimated that one signature equals one euro…this is a lot of money which AEGEE cannot afford. This is also why, for the team, reaching the one million signatures is not a goal in itself, but we use the ECI as a framework to do other, more fun activities about ECI, like the hitchhiking competition.

Another reason might be that successful ECIs often have a more comprehensive and actual claim, such as drinking water for everyone or saving the environment. We figured out that “Improve Civic Education in Europe” is not something that many people perceive as an urgent topic, to begin with because many people don’t know what the notion of ‘civic education’ actually means. If you have to explain why your topic is important, it is much more difficult to convince people to sign.

Isn’t the fact that we have just a few signatures collected damaging the image of AEGEE externally?

First of all, AEGEE is supporting the ECI and it is managed by AEGEE members as part of the Action Agenda. But officially it’s not AEGEE’s ECI because legally it can only be seven citizens (not an association) running it.

To come to the question, we noticed that in Brussels our ECI is not perceived in a negative way by other NGOs. Instead we get a lot of positive feedback from big stakeholders who acknowledge the fact that we run this ECI only with volunteer power.

Because of the ECI we contacted and cooperated with various external partners, not only about the ECI but about civic education in general. Our members were invited to be present or even to speak at different events. These contacts are also valuable for future projects.

Aside from our ECI about civic education, there is also the experience with the tool of ECI itself. External partners are aware of the flaws that ECI has as a tool in general. That’s why it’s not a shame to not reach one million signatures. And because we have this personal experience with a ECI, we are contacted often regarding the improvement of ECI as a tool. The European Commission just started a consultation process about ECI revision, so this topic is high on the agenda in Brussels and our opinion about it will definitely be heard.

Having all these points summarised, we don’t believe that the ECI damages AEGEE’s image, rather that it’s a great opportunity to have a long-term impact on direct democracy in Europe by helping to improve the tool.

Why did we start an ECI without having someone with campaigning expertise?

For about one year (between Oct 2015 and Oct 2016) we could not focus on campaigning because we had to figure out all the legal and technical issues that come with ECI registration. After having the ECI registered, we were looking for someone experienced in campaigning to become part of our team. But not even with offering an Erasmus + internship opportunity we managed to find such a person.

In the end, AEGEE is an association of volunteers. Therefore we can never be sure that we will find the appropriate human resources.

Besides, campaigning is not our main focus. We focus more on promoting awareness about the importance of civic education in Europe. Again, reaching one million signatures was never a goal in itself for us. However we admit that we could have better communicated this to the Network, who might have the impression that a ECI that doesn’t reach the necessary signatures is not a successful one. For us, the ECI has provided great opportunities and that’s why we already perceive it as a success.

What will happen until and after the ECI ends in October 2017?

Several activities are planned. Different SU’s will have a session about our ECI. There are also the travelling tablets, with two tablets striving to visit as many European cities as possible and collecting signatures along the way.

After the end of the ECI, on October 6th, we will still be involved in the ECI revision process. There is a consultation going on and they will organise different conferences regarding this where we are invited as relevant stakeholders, especially a conference in the European Parliament.

Written by European Citizens’ Initiative “More than Education” Task Force

The Civic Education Working Group proved to be a consistent and hard-working group of people since the reform of the WG was accepted in Spring Agora Asturias 2015. The topic proved to be high in the list of priority in our organisation and in Autumn Agora Chisinau it was selected again as one of the four focus area for 2017-2020. With a new Working Group team kicking off on the 1st of August, it is time to look back at what the team, led by Aliénor Pirlet, Working Group Coordinator, did in the past months. 

Introduce your Working Group. Who is in the team? What are their tasks?

Aliénor Pirlet:  I am a Belgian student in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at Leiden University. I joined AEGEE in 2015, I’m crazy about the intercultural atmosphere in our beloved association and I love travelling. I also like to take up new challenges, which is why I ran in Agora Bergamo to be the new coordinator of the CEWG. Besides that, I’m responsible for our newsletter and for creating new awareness campaigns.

Julia Hanesz: I am a Hungarian student from Slovakia currently spending an Erasmus semester in Paderborn (Germany) in International Business Economics. I joined AEGEE last spring to be able to participate to the SU in Warsaw organised by the CEWG. This is where I fell completely in love with AEGEE and Civic Education and decided to join the CEWG and become a policy officer of the WG. It was definitely one of my best decisions, I learnt so much about AEGEE, Europe, people and myself. Next to the policy paper, I am PR and responsible for the Quiz: ‘How civic are you?’.

Alexia Thomas: Belgian Student in Sustainable Citizenship in Utrecht, I am the Summer Universities responsible to collaborate in the funniest ways to make this summer matter.  I fell deeply in love with AEGEE and after becoming CEWG member I am now moderator of Society and the Environment Interest Group, subcommie and… who knows what the future will bring!

Evrim Emiroğlu:  I am from Ankara and I am currently studying in Economics at Anadolu University in Eskişehir. I have been an AEGEE member since spring 2012. Since then, I have been active with different responsibilities. During all these years, I always believed civic education to be one of the most important, if not the most important, aspects of our organisation. Therefore, I decided to join the Civic Education Working Group. I am responsible for network contact in the group.

Doro Harles: I am currently a student in Sociology and Psychology in Mannheim (Germany). After taking part to the SU coordinated by the CEWG last summer I was fascinated by civic education and wanted to work more on it. At the moment, I am doing an internship dealing with analysing voter turnout in Germany. In the Working Group I am dealing with organising Debating Competition and secretary work.

Daniela-Maria Maris : I am a member of AEGEE-Cluj-Napoca and finished my studies in Communication Science last year. This year, I’ve worked as Communication Assistant for the CD and I am now doing an internship at the German parliament. For me civic education is the only way we can achieve democracy. This is why I’ve chosen to get particularly active in AEGEE around this topic. I am part of the ECI task force and in the CEWG I am the external relations responsible and helped co-organising the Conference in Budapest.

Esther Hillmer: I am studying NGO-Management in Osnabrück (Germany) and just finished a three-month internship in Georgia. I became a member of AEGEE-Osnabrück in 2011 and joined the ECI task force last year. This work made me even more curious about civic education topics, so I was really happy to be part of the CEWG this year, for which I am the internal communication responsible.

María Ballesteros Melero: I am a translator and interpreter currently studying Political Science. I became a member of AEGEE-Madrid in 2014 and joined the Civic Education Working Group last May, as I believe civic education is the only way to achieve a real, long-lasting social change. I am responsible for the collaboration between the CEWG and the Europe on Track 4 project.

Bálint Toronyai: I am studying Economic Policy in Budapest. I became a member of AEGEE in 2014. I am particularly interested in civic education and media literacy as I believe it has an essential role in the formation of robust democratic societies. Within the CEWG, I am responsible for developing our workshop material and organising the debate competition.

What is the aim of the CEWG? Can you shortly summarise your activity plan?  

Aliénor: In short, the CEWG is there to help our network to achieve its aim regarding the Focus Area on civic education. At the beginning of each term, the new team members of the working group write a new Activity Plan listing the projects and activities they will be doing throughout the year in order to help to fulfill the yearly objectives on civic education.

Since our focus area has two aims, our Activity Plan contains activities to do within AEGEE on the one hand, and projects to do outside of AEGEE on the other hand. Within AEGEE, we chose to collaborate again this year with some antennae for helping with the creation of the content of their Summer Universities. Last year’s collaborations were a true success and we are confident they will be as fruitful this year! Next to this, we also organised the conference ‘Education for the Present, Democracy for the Future’ in collaboration with AEGEE-Budapest and the Europe on Track 4 project from the 21st to 23rd of April. More generally, we attend many events of AEGEE throughout the year where we deliver workshop, foster discussion and raise awareness about different topics related to civic education. Of course, we also develop many new material that AEGEEans can use whenever they want to have activities on civic education. Recently, we have created new guidelines for locals and have updated last year’s debating toolkit. We encourage locals to organise debates because it is a great way of using critical thinking, forging your own opinion and learning many relevant information on a (controversial) topic. This is why we organised a debate competition earlier this year. You can read all about it in the article of the AEGEEAN.

Regarding our projects also for young people outside of AEGEE, we are working on the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) More than education with the ECI task force and the Europe on Track 4 project to call for more civic education in Europe and foster discussions on the matter. We also launched a test on Facebook ‘How civic are you?’ for people to check out their civic knowledge. Currently, we are still working on an open letter for non-EU citizens who would also like to call on their government for more civic education in their countries. And last but not least, our awesome Policy Officer Julia is working hard on the policy paper dealing with the use of the ECI as a direct democratic tool.

Last year 12 Summer Universities chose to organise an event related to the Civic Education. Do you expect such a great participation also this year?

Evrim: We are having eight formal cooperations this year. This is less than last year but it is most probably linked to the fact that this summer, SUCT defined that formal cooperation means that one trainer is coming to deliver the workshops in cooperation with the local in order to ensure the quality of the cooperation. Currently,  every member of CEWG is working with one SU in order to create a quality thematic content for SUs.

Organising a Summer University is difficult, but organising a contentful SU is harder. The advantages of cooperating with us are that we are helping locals to choose the best topic for their SU. If they already chose, we decide which workshops need to be created and start working on it with the appointed person in charge of creating the content. As a method we try to be as fun and non-formal as possible to actively engage the participants.  

What is your policy paper about?

Julia: This year we are working on a policy paper about the European Citizens’ Initiative as a tool of direct democracy. In general there were already researches and discussions on this topic, about whether it is a relevant and successful tool of the European Union. Our aim is to examine it from a youth organisation’s perspective based on the experience with the ECI ‘More than Education’. You can also help with the research by filling the following survey.

The CEWG is very active. What is your secret?

Doro: There is no secret! Our “activeness” is coming from our super engaged and motivated members. Also, we did not start from nothing since we got a lot of support and inspiration from the CEWG of last year. We are helping and pushing each other in creating workshops, promotion material, developing new ideas, etc. There is always someone who can give you feedback and tips if you are stuck with something. This is also supported by our very good group dynamic: we trust and are honest with each other. In the beginning of each meeting we have a “weather forecast” in which everybody tells what are good and bad news lately and how are their feelings about it. We also like to laugh and have fun together which is helping in hard time. And that is also why we decided to meet each other for a fun meeting in Budapest before going together to the EPM in Zagreb.

What did you do at your live and fun meeting in Budapest?

Julia: We evaluated the work of the past few months, planned the next projects and had a lot of fun together. We had a chance to discover the Buda castle, the Great Historical Market, the Parliament, the Heroes square on the Pest side, visit the Central European University, and rest a bit at the Margaret island. Of course our Hungarian experience would have not been complete without tasting the goulash soup, the mákos guba or the kürtőskalács. We also cooked together a traditional food, the ‘lapcsánka’ or ‘tócsni’. Thanks to AEGEE-Budapest we had a chance to visit a few “Ruin Bars” in the heart of Budapest during the wonderful pub crawl organised for us. Next to all of that we also organised a signature collection for the More than Education ECI, during which we had many interesting discussion with locals, who happily supported us with their signature. It was a very productive and fun meeting! 

Do you want to add something?

Aliénor: If you enjoy reading about our activities and know all about the latest update of our workshop materials, please subscribe to our newsletter. You can also read the ones already published. And do not hesitate to contact us at info@civiceducation.eu!

Written by Erika Bettin, AEGEE-Verona

Before anything, I feel like I need to introduce myself. I am Pablo Palazón, Network Commissioner (Bergamo 2016-Enschede 2017) and this article is to express my very own and personal opinion about AEGEE. Many of my colleagues in the Network Commission, as well as many fellow AEGEEans, will disagree with me, and I kind of like that. That is what, I think, AEGEE should be— disagreements and agreements while respecting each other.

Sharing my opinion on this topic has long been in my head and I hope that it will generate some debate or at least some thoughts. When I first heard about AEGEE, four years ago now, I loved the idea. Young people fighting for a borderless Europe, fighting for the construction of bridges between cultures and fostering the European identity is just a gorgeous idea. My first Summer University only confirmed my love for AEGEE and how much I wasted my time before! But now, after four years, that teenager crush for this organisation evolved to something more like “I love you despite yourself”.

My first Agora was quite shocking: 800 people gathering together! Well, not really… Just about 100 paying attention, about 250 sleeping or taking selfies (#Agora #SavingEurope) and 450 not even present, visiting the city or cities nearby. Why would AEGEE make the effort to organise such a big event and gather so many people? Finally, we understood it— the Agora Reform Task Force is working on improving it and there is some progress, but the core problem remains there and I doubt it is going to be solved. In general, Agora is quite boring. Is it a problem of the Agora itself? Is Agora too long? (Agora Enschede will last five days. Crazy, right?) Are we having too many discussions about non-crucial things and not enough about important stuff? Would it be better to have way shorter Agoras, to give one afternoon off for social programme and have most of the voting online or done by other means? Would that change the experience of the participants?

I feel Agora is the biggest show of AEGEE. The image towards externals is quite good. Local newspapers cover it like a massive gathering of youth working to make Europe a youth-friendly continent. The city mayor gives an amazing speech empowering youth. But what I see when I go to an Agora is the gym divided in “Spanish Federación”; “Italian Mafia”; “Greek ghetto”, etc…  I see plenaries and prytannia half empty. I see people approving activity reports that basically say: “Well, we did not do much this year”. I even feel a little concerned when I see the after movie, and most of it is based on clips from the parties at the Agora. The best part of the Agora is not the Agora, and that is scary!

And the worst part of the problem is that Agora is just an example. Than, Network Meetings where we have 9 hours of training per day. We make the effort to go to amazing cities and wonderful places and we spend 20 hours on trainings. Is that again too much? Would it be better to have fewer sessions and make NWM more appealing? For me, it is not a matter of trying to show how to improve your local and how to benefit from projects in one weekend. It is the perfect place to actually network, to get to know people from other locals, to share problems and solutions. The most common feedback that I generally get from NWMs is that it was a pity not having time to visit the city where the NWM was hosted, or hike around the accommodation if it was away from the city. If we want to empower people and make them more aware of what AEGEE is and how awesome the network is, maybe it is about being more relaxed about training and focusing more on making people enjoy it on a different way. Weekend events with 20 hours of training do not generate active members, they generate sleepy people.

The level of complexity that AEGEE has reached is a problem. People involved in European Bodies or Projects are asked to spend hours and hours on internal issues. We fail to foster the organisation of thematic events and we are seeing how the number of locals decreases. We suck the energy from the most active people and we ask them to give even more free time than they are keen on giving away. AEGEE’s backbone is a bunch of people stressed by the amount of work they need to do. Again, have we grown in a too complex way? Are we, by trying to achieve too much, not achieving enough? Is the amount of work we ask from CD and active people in AEGEE just unbearable?
I am a biologist and I have seen it before. It is a common rule in ecology- when a system becomes too complex, it collapses and needs to restart from scratch. How to regenerate the system? Mother Nature does it with natural disasters. And I fear that AEGEE will need a natural disaster to fix its complexity. But the question is: is the natural disaster already occurring in AEGEE? Maybe it is just in front of you and you have not seen it yet.

A few months ago we (and I say “we” because we voted it at Agora) started an amazing thing called European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI). We aimed to reach 1.000.000 signatures to push the European Parliament to put Civic Education on their political agenda. We knew  it would be difficult and we thought: even if we don’t succeed, we will be raising awareness about it, at least. A few months later, we have just a little more than 700 signatures (www.morethaneducation.eu if you have not voted yet). Not even people present at Agora, where the ECI was approved, have signed it! I do not want to be in the position to explain to people that AEGEE is an organisation that cares about Civic Education (since it has been one of our focus areas for the past three years and will be for the upcoming three years), meanwhile I can’t get my members to spend two minutes filling a form for the European Parliament.

AEGEE needs to rethink what it is and what it wants to be. And it might need to simplify things and change lot of stuffs. Those changes will be controversial for sure, but they will need to happen. What is clear to me is that, when Franck Biancheri founded our beloved organisation, AEGEEans could save Europe. In contrast, now I have the feeling that we would rather enjoy the very last European Night while Europe is collapsing. The beauty of AEGEE is that in 5 years time, just a few of us will still be an active part of AEGEE, but whatever step we take now will influence the future generations. I think it is time to act and ask ourselves: AEGEE, where are you going?

Written by Pablo Palazón, AEGEE-Manchester

One of the aims of our organisation is to foster educating members able to think critically and outside the box, but at the same time to understand the political reality and society, therefore the importance of civic education. During the planning part of EPM Burgos in 2015, the idea to start a campaign to strenghten the teaching of civic education was first proposed and it later developed into the “More than education- European Citizens’ Initiative”. We spoke to Maria Maris, AEGEE- Cluj-Napoca and currently the CD assistant on communication, and she gave us a useful, clear and short guide to it. 

The AEGEEan: Why Civic Education?

Maria: For us, civic education means learning critical thinking, political participation and open-mindedness. Civic education is the attempt to teach and show people how the world works, so they can become active and responsible citizens. Also, AEGEE is doing non-formal civic education [she smiles, ed.]. Didn’t we become more active and responsible citizens because of AEGEE?

What is the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) ?

The European Citizens’ Initiative is the 1st and ONLY tool for direct democracy in the European Union! ECI means collecting 1.000.000 signatures in one year throughout Europe from at least seven EU Member States. People have the chance to participate directly in the development of EU policies. With their signature, citizens call on the European Commission to make a legislative proposal about a certain topic – in this case improving civic education in the whole Europe!

Why did you decide to have this campaign?

To put it clear out there: civic education is the way to a functional democracy.

We strongly believe that a democracy relies, for its legitimacy, on active and responsible citizens. We all know that at the heart of democracy are people. This should make it clear that a democracy can only function and be successful if citizens are active and involved in their societies. Teaching civic competences at school is crucial for a democratic society.

Civic education in Europe is currently insufficient and incoherent. Therefore, teaching civic competences should be strengthened and coordinated throughout Europe.

That is why “More Than Education” calls on the European Commission to set up a long-term agenda for coordinating civic education among EU members states, create benchmarks, offer space for exchanging best practices, strengthen financial support programmes for consultation and networking projects in civic education policy, organise periodic evaluation and, all in all, support member states in their responsibility of providing civic education. Shortly: bring all EU member states to talk and work together on civic education and make civic education more popular in the EU.

And of course… Because it is awesome!

The idea to launch an European Citizens’ Initiative  was included in AEGEE’s Action Agenda during the European Planning Meeting in Burgos in February 2015. Civic education is one of the four focus areas of AEGEE and starting an ECI supports the aim of setting civic education on the political agenda at all levels.

Who is part of the task force?

We currently have a team of 20 people that work on different tasks and subteams. Maybe it is important to mention that besides external relations, PR, FR and so on we have the national coordinators. They are responsible for the strategy of collecting signatures, making new partners and recruiting and coordinating ambassadors for the ECI in their own country. Currently, we are looking for more national coordinators. If anyone is interested and want to have more information about it, please contact us at contact@morethaneducation.eu.

What can locals do to join this initiative?

Here you can find a useful document with all the guidelines for locals.

To sum up:

#WHAT – We want to put civic education on the European political agenda.

#CivicEducation – means learning the competencies, i.e. skills, knowledge and attitudes, required to be an active, democratic and responsible citizen.

#WHY – without education there is no real democracy.

#HOW – By collecting 1.000.000 signatures for ECI.

#ECI – The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) allows one million EU citizens to participate directly in the development of EU policies, by calling on the European Commission to make a legislative proposal.

#WhatYOUcando!

#SIGN the ECI

#LIKE us

#Donate www.morethaneducation.eu/donate/

#Collect signatures!

#Promote the ECI in your local

#Be part of the ECI Task Force

#Be CIVIC and EDUCATED!

Written by Erika Bettin, AEGEE-Verona