AEGEE still growing strong in the East

Original article

The AEGEE network is still developing and changing dramatically. In the past five years, the number of antennae, contact antennae and contacts rose by 63 percent: from 160 to 261 by the end of 1999. “I am impressed by this growth,” says Michal Pesta, responsible for the network in the Comité Directeur. Currently, the biggest part of the growth is occurring in Central and Eastern Europe. “Since the idea of Europe and European integration here is new and fresh, the reality of it is very much desired,” he adds. “We can see this happening in, for example, Belarus, Poland and Ukraine.”

Many local groups have also appeared in Turkey lately. The fact that AEGEE-Adana organised a very successful Presidents’ Meeting in September 1999, is a perfect example to show how active this country, bordering Asia, is. “Yugoslavia and Bosnia and Herzegovina are also developing significantly,” states Michal. “We finally have enthusiastic people in Banja Luka, Tuzla and Sarajevo, once again.”

This means that there is hardly any country in Europe left where AEGEE does not exist. “We have antennae in most of the larger university cities in 42 countries,” continues Michal. In the past, it has not always been like this. In the first four years of its existence, AEGEE restricted itself to the member states of the European Union. In fact, in 1988, AEGEE existed only in nine countries. This situation was regarded unsatisfactory, so AEGEE undertook efforts to enlarge the network. In the late 1980s, first local groups in EFTA countries were founded.

Immediately after the revolutionary changes in Central and Eastern Europe occurred in 1989, AEGEE made its first contact with CEEC students. The first antenna in that area was AEGEE-Leipzig, quickly followed by local groups in Budapest, Praha and Warszawa. “AEGEE is the forerunner of development. The European institutions did this step much later,” stresses Michal Pesta.

Today, AEGEE’s strongest points are in the Netherlands. 21 percent of its members are living there. Italy is another influential part of the network. “They organise the highest number of Summer Universities and leisure events,” explains the network responsible. “With 12 active locals, my home country, Poland, has the best organised Central European network.”

However, the network also has its weak points, especially in the United Kingdom and in Ireland. Michal points out: “These students unfortunately have little interest in AEGEE. Nearly all antennae there are established and run by continental AEGEE members visiting the country on Erasmus programmes.” Scandinavia and the Baltic countries are equally problematic zones. They suffer from distance problems inside their region. France is also a weak area, but it is the focus of AEGEE’s network development plans. “The total number of antennae in the network went down a bit compared to last year, but that is because we deleted the local groups that have no members anymore. In total, the network is still growing, and we trust that this will continue.”

Original article

In the year 2000, AEGEE wants to develop its network with particular influence in Denmark, France and Belgium. “We are planning to make presentations at the most outstanding Belgian universities in order to establish new antennae in Brussels and surroundings,” says the network responsible in the CD. During the Presidents’ Meeting in Skopje, held in March 2000, the participants also discussed the question of the borders in Europe. Should European territories such as French Guyana and countries such as Iceland be regarded as potential AEGEE countries? And what about the countries that are close to the European mentality, such as Israel? This question still has not been resolved. However, due to their interest in Europe and them being approved by many European institutions, the Presidents’ Meeting agreed that Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia should be included in the network. “In the future we want to take better care of the quality of the network, not only looking at the number of antennae,” stresses Michal.

Each AEGEE antenna has to organise at least one European event per year. “Who knows, maybe in the next years we will welcome to our network the first AEGEE locals in the Caucasian capitals of Baku, Yerevan and Tbilisi.”

Written by Key To Europe 1999-2000 Team

Originally published in Key To Europe 1999-2000

Original article

Y Vote 2009

 Y Vote 2009 is at the same time the AEGEE project that gained most visibility among the media and policy-makers in recent years and the AEGEE project that dealt most explicitly with solely European Union affairs. This was inevitably made possible by the grants of the European Commission Youth in Action fund for youth projects. In brief, Y Vote 2009 was aimed to encourage and empower young people aged 18-24 to cast their vote for the European Parliament elections taking place 4 to 7 June, 2009. In the 2004 European Parliament elections, 67% of the people aged 18-24 did not vote. We focused on elevating this rather bad achievement. Of course, voter turnout rate can, and should, be higher at all times, but here we talk about the first-time voters, the future electorate, and the future leaders of Europe.

Details about how did we work this out in practice will follow, but let’s first look at the actual voter turnout rates and compare them to previous EP elections. In 2004, the previous elections mobilized 45-47% of the EU voters. We detect a spiraling trend, because in 2009, in total 43% of the voters headed to the polls, and every single 5 years the turnout rate falls by on average 3%.

So at the end of the day, was the project then not successful? I am absolutely convinced that such a question is impossible to answer objectively. One has to bear in mind that we dealt with possibly the biggest conundrum of those interested in the future of Europe. AEGEE turned towards the very essence of EU integration – that European decision-making is not only for its citizens, but also with its citizens.

From the outset the Y Vote 2009 project resembled the heart and mind of its founder, and later Project Manager, Dragan Stojanovski. It was first of all a genuine product from young, idealist students. One can see this unmistakably in the final manifesto, the Youth Agenda 2009, that rounded up the outcomes of a real cycle of one-week conferences. Furthermore, it was a product of young people who truly care for the European story, and who believe in active contribution to society for the sake of democracy.

Original article

The whole campaign started with a launching conference in Vienna, September 2008. On some 15 big one-week conferences thereafter we visited student cities across the EU. It was stimulating that in each city we were welcomed by local members. So, the campaign moved completely within the realm of possibilities that AEGEE offers. Every such conference tackled a specific theme, for example, Creativity and Innovation, Education, or EU on the world stage, and on each of these conferences the experts in our network were invited to lead workshops for participants (who were, by the way, both members and non-members). In the workshops (small group work) and panel discussions with Members of European Parliament, university professors, and other leaders the participants got plenty of room to share their thoughts. What is more, it was a time to have ferocious Oxford debates, display their uncertainties about a lack of knowledge about a topic, ask questions to panelists, develop communication skills… Thanks to the social program and cultural, touristic activities everybody had the chance to feel comfortable enough to make all these things happen.

Participants got to know Y Vote 2009 in various ways, mainly through our blog, e-social networks, and following sound cooperation with other International Youth NGO’s like BEST, and the European Youth Forum (umbrella organisation AEGEE is a member of). Aside of this participant-empowerment dimension of the project, the other paramount challenge we had to square up to was to find people, young and old, EU citizen, and then to engage in dialogue with them or simply to catch their eye with our message ‘Y Vote? Why not?’. One way or another you have to find those voters, which can be hard if you planned a street action in the open air just when it starts raining.

More importantly, a street interview, or ‘canvassing’ in jargon, is also a reality check. Talking to random people made us realize things and learn about the increasing complexity of a globalizing world, its impact on individuals, and the environment in which young people are growing up, fully with its own values. We learnt quickly that you have to meet them further than halfway–the message of voting is important, and so is the means of getting attention. This came out as well during the UK Tour, a special part of the project dedicated to the United Kingdom, widely known to be by far the most eurosceptic EU member state. While getting attention about EU affairs is assumed to be most difficult in eurosceptic countries, this did not entirely ring true for our efforts in the UK. There we could tour the city centers in our mobile Y Vote van, drawing the attention of all passers-by as we blew balloons with our slogan, we screamed, and the van’s speakers boosted loud music.

Original article

To highlight one last aspect of the campaign is not difficult to choose. Campaigning in the 21st century cannot do anymore without presence on the internet. Millions of people have a profile on social networks like YouTube and Facebook – and it does not take a genius to see that these are opportunities that can generate extremely high levels of interest with a relatively very small effort. All year long, from different parts of Europe, from different Y Vote events, material was gathered to be uploaded little time later, video-editing, funny and thought-provoking video clips that make democracy truly reach out again into households. And it was marvelous to see Facebook statuses of hundreds of friends show ‘I voted for European elections’, not to mention the on-line comments on the Y Vote 2009 performance on Europarl.tv’s Election Night broadcast. Yet still not everybody has replaced older-fashioned communication for e-social media. One sunny spring day in 2009 the president of AEGEE, Dragan Stojanovski, got a best wishes message from the President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano. By telegram.

By the way, the Youth Agenda 2009, the manifesto that outlines all that young people desire from the presently sitting members of European Parliament, can be sent to you by the author upon request. Working diligently on Y Vote events, together, towards the biggest democratic happening on our continent, being increasingly more excited during the last three weeks leading up to the elections, has something fantastic about it. Something that voluntary work deserves.

Written by Thijs de Wolff, AEGEE-Utrecht and Y Vote Content & Formats Manager

Originally published in Key To Europe 2009-2010

The AEGEEan is starting a new section – News from the Past! Now on regular basis we will introduce you to interesting articles from previous annual reports (“Key to Europe“). First article in this series goes back to 2002!

Original article

Communication: from strategy to implementation
Branding AEGEE in Brussels (April 1997- May 1999)

Background and Challenge

For AEGEE-Europe, Brussels was a relatively new field, as the Head Office had been located in Delft until 1996. Setting up an office and managing to develop the right contacts had taken quite some time and it was necessary to prioritize the “outward face of AEGEE.”

At that time, I was a member of the elected European board called Comité Directeur. There were many strong points which I was able to use in my communication, such as the solid network that AEGEE represented, the fact that AEGEE covers all topics (interdisciplinary), it does not have a national level (as the future of the EU could have been seen in that moment) and the history AEGEE had in the development of Erasmus. From this it was clear that AEGEE should have a strong voice in the European market in Brussels in the field of education and it was my job to make all this known.

My first task was to map out the different target groups within Brussels, such as the media (especially European media), the European Institutions (European Commission, European Parliament, Committee of the Regions, Permanent representations) and the NGOs (ESIB, ESN, European Youth Forum). I started with updating the current contact, such as with DGXXII, with whom a very good connection already existed. From this I created a new database, which was kept up-to-date on a daily basis.

Further more, I needed to know how the Network wanted to be represented. In order to “brand” AEGEE, I needed to know exactly what I was trying to “brand” and for this I needed the feedback from the Network. The result was a questionnaire, to which many locals responded. The main conclusion was rather surprising to me: most locals had problems with presenting their results externally, mainly because they did not feel that they were a part of a big association.

The next step was sending out press releases to journalists about the activities of AEGEE. I also arranged press conferences in the office of AEGEE-Europe to get media attention. A very important point in this was the permanent contact I had with the “Anciens of AEGEE” in Brussels. Most of them were working in European Affairs and were able to help AEGEE in developing its contacts. Lobbying with journalists for European media, such as the European Voice, Agence Europe, Uniting Europe, Europolitique, BBC and La Libre Belgique, was crucial for the media coverage of AEGEE’s activities. We presented the results of projects such as Europe and Euro and set up new projects, such as Socrates Action Day, and the first conference in the European Parliament (March ’99).

The feedback of the Network to these projects was very important in order to create the correct angle for communication. The new projects were based on the “voices from the Network” and the conference in the European Parliament was set up especially to give the locals who participated the feeling that they were part of a big network. However, more internal communication on the history of AEGEE was equally important.

Results

In those two years I developed “the brand of AEGEE” in the European market of Brussels. And it paid off. The visibility of AEGEE in the European media increased enormously. In 1998 for example there was an article almost every week on AEGEE and its activities. Secondly, a large respect for AEGEE and its activities exists in the European Institutions and the NGOs. This was felt especially when a speaker was invited for a conference and many important figures were happy to come. But the financial support for AEGEE increased as well. The public institutions (European Commission) were open to give support to the activities of AEGEE. But for me the most important result was the change of mentality inside the Network of AEGEE. Member felt again that they were part of a big network; they were proud of the activities of AEGEE and felt appreciated in what they did.

Written by Dan Luca, AEGEE-Cluj-Napoca

Originally published in Key To Europe 2002-2003