Two cities, a full schedule with a strong thematic side, the usual AEGEE spirit: this is what lies ahead for participants to the conference “Brexit-What next?” jointly held by AEGEE-London, AEGEE-Manchester and AEGEE-Sheffield from the 29th of November to the 4th of December. 25 participants, both AEGEEans and non-AEGEEans, will have the opportunity to tackle the issues arising from Brexit, specifically focusing on youth mobility. We reached Dominik Stengele, president of AEGEE-London, to discover more. 

The AEGEEan: Please introduce yourself to our readers.

Dominik: My name is Dominik Stengele. My enthusiasm about our beautiful continent and passion to travel and explore made me join AEGEE in 2013. I was elected president of AEGEE-London in July 2017 and I am programme responsible of our upcoming event “Brexit – What Next?”.

Why did you decide to organise the event “Brexit – What Next?” with AEGEE-Sheffield and AEGEE-Manchester?

Our European Students’ Network has sadly never been too active within the United Kingdom, even though AEGEE-London was one of the founding antennae in 1985. Furthermore, the result of the Brexit referendum concerns us and adds uncertainty to our future as young Europeans. We therefore decided, for the first time ever, to unite as UK-based AEGEE locals and organise a thematic conference together.

Which will be the contribution of AEGEE-London during the event?

There is a very active and passionate group of young Europeans behind this event that works hard to make it happen. We operate in several teams in parallel to cover all aspects of the event, like thematic content, accomodation, fundraising, PR and others. Members of AEGEE-London are active in each of those teams and will be participating the event as helpers and moderators for panel discussions.

In your experience, what has changed for AEGEE locals in the UK after Brexit?

Everyone in AEGEE was deeply saddened by the Brexit referendum result and we received many messages and had discussions with our fellow Europeans both here and abroad. But every crisis also opens a window of opportunity. While the United Kingdom prepares to leave the European Union, a large number of people, which in fact is majority across opinion polls, stands up and speaks out as pro-European. Due to this new enthusiasm across the society, we as AEGEE-London grew faster than the average of AEGEE in 2017, hence are able to be more active than we used to be. However the uncertainty in the air about the conditions of Brexit also worries many of us. If, for example, citizens of the European Union had to apply for tourist visa after Brexit, then this would certainly hurt our abilities to organise larger events in the future. While our impact on the conditions of Brexit is limited, our enthusiasm and dedication isn’t. And AEGEE can expect the UK-based locals to be actively participating across our entire network.

What are the outcomes you would like to achieve with this event?

Our event will focus on the future of freedom of movement in the United Kingdom and its consequences for young people on both sides of the channel. This advantage, which many of us take for granted, can be drastically limited after Brexit. We will discuss youth mobility in detail, both in workshops and panel discussions with experts, and will also cover related topics such as the future of Erasmus+. With this event we also show our fellow Europeans that the UK-based AEGEE locals are not only alive, but more active than ever before. We also want to take advantage of this new dynamic to organise more events in the future.

Who can participate to the event and how?

Everyone is welcome to apply to our event! Please find more information in the ‘Apply’ section of our event webpage.

You can fill this Google Form to apply. If you’re member of AEGEE you also must fill this other form (click Apply next to the application dates, you must be logged in with your AEGEE account). The deadline is Sunday 15th of October. 

Written by Federica Soro, AEGEE-Cagliari

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

Today, because of the global financial crisis, the future of united Europe does not seem so bright like it was some years ago. There are less talks about integration and there are more discussions about independence and rejection of the single European currency – Euro. In these tough times for united Europe, we, representatives from different countries, have to be strong and to support each other. Each of us has a way to be heard by joining a group of people who share your ideas. AEGEE, European Students’ Forum, is one of the most recognized youth communities which bring together young people from all over Europe.

What is the situation are we facing now? Dreams of united Europe are melting in the current problems. Huge debts of some countries are making them vulnerable and dependent on the others that cannot provide equal opportunities for all inhabitants of EU. The current economic system where most of the production factories moved to Asia is creating problems on the regional job markets. High rate of youth unemployment does not allow young people to get a job and to apply their knowledge in practice. Existing vacancies require people with relevant work experience. The unfair cycle of “I cannot get job because I don’t have experience” vs. “I don’t have experience because I don’t have a job” is spreading around Europe.

Europe’s well-known capital is seeking for cheap labor force and other resources. Business does not have a heart; their only love is for profit and effectiveness. Sure, it is important to have an open and highly competitive market but everything should be reasonable. There is a huge social impact behind it. Advantages of cheap goods today will create many problems tomorrow. Low salaries, lack of job opportunities, huge debts and social instability are consequences of wrong political and economic decisions. Today many people do not have the confidence in their future since there are not many stable jobs. They cannot have many children because they do not have enough money to raise them. The present system of granting credits creates much more problems than it helps. Once loan debtors lose their jobs they cannot pay for the credits. And this is only a small part of all existing problems.

Today the importance of international youth organizations as AEGEE increases more than ever. This is a way to support European integration by supporting youth rights and needs, promoting common projects and organising cultural exchanges.  I hope AEGEE will keep its position as one of the most recognized youth organisations in Europe and continue to work on projects that help resolve the critical problems of European Union and neighborhood countries.

Today each of us can support AEGEE by taking an active role in the life of our antennae and working on projects at European level. The more active members we have, the more we can change for the better inspired by our common ideas. Europe is calling us. And today our support is very important. Like never before.

Written by Ekaterina Malysheva, AEGEE-Valencia

Original Article

1995 was the year of our Association’s tenth anniversary which we took as an opportunity to analyse the achievements of AEGEE in its first ten years.

AEGEE has realised a number of its aims, the biggest one being the creation of a truly pan-European network spreading all over the continent and using it to promote the European idea among young people, especially within the student population.

In the last ten years, AEGEE gave over 200,000 people the opportunity to increase their awareness of Europe first hand, during projects and events organized on topics of young people’s concern.

Many results and experiences were taken from different projects and events, and they were presented to the responsible institutions and the outside world. The greatest result however, the experience of all of us, that we can only build the society of tomorrow together, cannot be measured. With the world moving closer and closer together, with distances becoming shorter and communication faster and more plentiful every day, there is no alternative to mutual understanding and co-operation in order to tackle and solve the problems of the future.

Also in 1996, AEGEE has great plans to integrate more people into an all-European society.

This year we will see major milestones – in the content and structure of our Association. With our office moving to Brussels we decided to be closer to many organisations that will determine the fate of Europe more than ever. With the project “Find your way to and within an open society” we see a co-operation of 14 locals in East and West, working together to strengthen the pluralistic society in Central and Eastern Europe.

Over 100 European events with topics ranging from Education to the European Monetary Union are going to be organized by AEGEE antennae. Many of these events are to be seen in an international context of co-operation of different antennae in certain fields which we chose to focus on, such as the issues at stake in the upcoming Intergovernmental Conference, the question about our common European identity, and the challenges and opportunities of the Information Society.

15,000 students in 170 cities from Amsterdam to Athina and from Madrid to Moskva are presently members of our Association and the numbers are still growing. But growth is not an objective in itself; it is a way to improve the European society of tomorrow by involving more and more young people in learning from and about each other and thus enabling them to live together in peace and prosperity.

Written by Christoph Strohm, AEGEE-Köln and President of AEGEE-Europe in 1995

Originally published in Key To Europe 1995-1996

A couple of weeks ago we started an online survey with the question whether the Summer University Project needs a new logo. For some of you may be out of the blue, but an idea that has been around for some time now.

From the responses we got through our survey or on Facebook people were very much divided on this, and not just divided but also with strong opinions and emotionally expressed. Not strange if you know that the Summer Universities can be life changing and people have great memories and thoughts about them. All triggered by a small smiling sun with a graduation cap on.

Before explaining ourselves first the results. 93 Votes were casted. Out of these votes 51 were in favour of changing the logo (55%). A little less, 42 votes were against changing the logo (45%).

So why did we come up with the idea to have a survey on the logo of the Summer University. As commented wisely by some of you the logo is actually the least to worry about for the SUCT and there are many more important things we have to do. Agreed. But since we like to take on more work and get the Summer University even better we also wanted to address the visual identity and thus the logo of the project. So why? Is the current logo not good enough?

The logo of the Summer University Project since 1997 (or earlier?), 2006, 2010

Since many years the Summer University project has had the sun in one or another way as its logo. Nothing wrong with that, it is funny, takes away the seriousness the projects name creates, and looking at the number of applicants every year it does not seem to be a problem. No problem, so no need to change it you could say. But since our network is slowly changing due to the changing environment AEGEE has to manoeuvre in, there are calls to address issues that do not cause any problems yet. This is also one of the reasons to avoid the dialectics of lead.
This makes me to come to two issues that we need to address. One in general for AEGEE, the second one more specific for the Summer University project:

1. In the upcoming years there is a big chance that AEGEE will see a greatly reduced income from public funds. So new ways have to be found to gain income to keep providing our network with the facilities and services we have built in the last years.

2. New technologies give people not only new ways of communicating, but also cheaper and easier traveling. Compared to 25 years ago, we have many different ways to go abroad. Relatively cheap. AEGEE and the Summer University project are not the only way for us, the youth, to discover the world. So why would we first join AEGEE, go through all the selection process and maybe, or maybe not, end up with a Summer University while you can travel yourself cheap and easy throughout the continent and even further?

These two points are issues we don’t have any traction on. We can’t just ignore them and go ahead the way we have done for the last many years. Since both of them are quite big issues I’ll address the first one in this article, especially because this one was the reason to start with the survey. A later article will discuss the second topic.

Reduced public funds for AEGEE

During last Agora more attention has already been addressed to this subject by the Comité Directeur. Because the question is whether we can still pay for the work of the Comité Directeur in the future, will the house still be paid for by the Commission, what about support for projects or training courses and of course the travel reimbursements to keep in touch with the network. This makes the Comité Directeur look for new ways of raising money, and not only should they do so, but the entire network. Actively or passively by providing ways for private or commercial funding.
As some of you wrote in the responses of the survey, and we only agree on, the Summer University project is maybe the “real flagship” project of AEGEE. It has every year the largest and most widespread attention throughout the European continent. So why not use that properly? So should we not use the Summer University project to raise money for our beloved association, for our great network?

Market research on logos of youth summer schools, universities and local summer camps

As Summer University Coordination team we think we should. But how can we do that? For a start we can sell advertisement space in the booklet, on posters and on our website. To convince possible companies, organisations or other partners to buy that space we do need to look a little professional. Well, one of the many other responses in the survey was that the logo should look more professional and more appealing. That is exactly what we agree on. The current sun is not a logo that would convince potential partners to support this project and therefore AEGEE. The question is whether they would take it serious at all? It is more of a quickly designed logo by a small local organisation trying to organise a summer school or summer camp (see image). And doesn’t the sun maybe portray the image of the Summer University project we don’t want it to have to the external world: sun, sea, party, sex and drugs. Unfortunately, these were actual responses in the survey to the question what associations you have with the Summer University project.

Market research on logos of travel agencies and organisations

If we want to achieve the goal of making the Summer University project look more professional and act by its image as a trustworthy partner for other organisations, it is nice to look at organisations that have the same intention. For example, if we have a look at other travel organisations or organisations (see the image), then there is no smiley or personalised faces to be found in their logos. Why? Because they quickly look childish and not capable to act as a big and important partner. Not for cooperations, not for potential customers. However, to portray they are about traveling there are some other things that do come back often: the shape of the sun, bright various colours, icons of faraway destinations, or icons what they serve you: flights, biking tours, hikes, etc.

If you look at our lovely Sun logo, would you as potential partner cooperate with AEGEE to promote your service and pay lots of money for that? I would not.
So let us prepare for new times, and move forward. What are your ideas for a new logo?

Written by Maurits Korse, AEGEE-Enschede & SUCT