Did you miss the European Planning Meeting this year? It was organised by AEGEE-Leiden and took place between the 25th and 29th of February. Thanks to their amazing work and team coordination, they managed to organise a great European Planning Meeting. Not suprisingly, AEGEE-Leiden was voted Local of the Month for February for this great accomplishment. So, we had a talk with Boudewijn Steenhof, Main Organiser, and also Casper Renting, Vice Main Organiser of the event to tell us a few details about the challenges the team encountered  and the antenna’s future plans.

The AEGEEan: First of all, congratulations for being voted Local of the Month for February! What are your future plans in AEGEE?

Casper: Thanks on behalf of everyone from -Leiden! I’m sure that all these active and intelligent members will continue to do great things for our local and the Network. For example, I’ve heard things about a NWM next year… Personally, the EPM feels like a transition from Leiden to Europe. I recently joined the LIG & HRC and started as SubCom for Loes.

Boudewijn: For me, organising the EPM was the last big thing I will do in AEGEE-Leiden. I’ve had five great years, learnt a lot and made quite a few good friends. But what AEGEE-Europe has in store for me, you never know…

What was your overall impression as a hosting local of the EPM?

Boudewijn: Apart from it being very tiring, it was amazing. To see all these participants enjoying all we have worked for in the last year was simply great. I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we have learnt a lot from organising the EPM about ourselves, each other, and AEGEE! A hosting local receives a lot of attention during this time, which can be overwhelming. But I think we dealt with it well, and everyone knows AEGEE-Leiden for whole different reasons now!

What do you think you could have done better?

Casper: Oh, so many things! No seriously, we are really proud on what we have accomplished, but we also see room for improvement. Happily these were things mostly invisible for participants. For example, we lost quite a lot of stuff during the event. Apparently it’s not that hard to lose a big professional trolley, or 40 forks.

There were also quite a few participants who thought the food was a bit too ‘Dutch’, meaning, too many sandwiches. But I don’t think this is something we would have done differently, as trying different cuisines is part of exploring other cultures.

Do you plan to also organise an Agora at one point?

Casper: We already did! In 1987 (EGEE-III) and 2010 to be exact. But also if we hadn’t, I don’t think we would soon organise the Agora. It’s not like the EPM is a stepping stone to the bigger and maybe more prestigious Agora. Actually, it’s better to do something smaller really well, than something big so so, and because the city of Leiden arguably doesn’t have the facilities to host an event with this scale, I don’t think we should consider it. This is the sad reality I know other antenna deal with as well. They are very capable and would do great, but their city lacks the facilities.

What do you think was the biggest challenge in organising the EPM? 

Boudewijn: Definitely the logistics. Having the right locations, with the right stuff and the right people all come together to form a well-working machine has been a great challenge.

Casper: I’d add to that satisfying everyone’s needs. Obviously participants are very diverse in their preferences, but also in our team we had different ideas of what “EPM Leiden 2016” should be like. Combined with requests from the Content Team, Chair Team and Comité Directeur, all within our limited financial and logistical possiblities, this created a complex but interesting challenge.

After this experience, what piece of advice would you give to a local who has just decided to host an EPM?

Casper: Don’t ‘just decide’ it, haha. Make sure you have full support from your university and municipality, as you will very likely need them. Related to that, money is everything. Don’t even consider applying if you’re not sure you can get your funding sorted out. Lastly, you’re not going to organise it yourself. Make sure your whole antenna (especially if you’re small) supports the idea and is willing to put time and effort in it, and be aware that your local activities and plans will suffer. I’d say these are the three most important checks you should do before you can decide to host an event on this size.

What did you think of the theme (the refugees’crisis) for this EPM?

Casper: I think it’s a very important and relevant topic that deserves attention in the Network. From an organiser’s perspective, it was way easier to ‘sell’ an event with this topic to financial partners and media, than an EPM without a specific topic would have been. Combined, I’m proud we could facilitate a discussion about this topic. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to actually participate.

The AEGEEan: Thank you for your time!

Written by Gabriela Geană, AEGEE-București

From the 7th till the 10th of January, AEGEEans gathered in Pireaus for the event “EU debt & Refugee Crisis: How successfully does the EU manage it? Will the EU survive?” organised by AEGEE-Peiraias in collaboration with Democracy in Practice. The first day of the sessions, the 8th of January, was dedicated to the topic of the Refugee Crisis and the second one to the topic of EU debt. Eight participants from Romania, Germany, Netherlands, Spain and Ukraine, several ones from Greece, members of AEGEE-Peiraias and AEGEE-Athina, but also non-AEGEE members attended the event.

The first day began with expressing the participants’ expectations and most of them were interested in the refugee crisis topic and curious about the EU debt. Some of them considered that this event can represent a starting point for discussing and expressing ideas for the upcoming European Planning Meeting (EPM).
After sharing their expectations, the part dedicated to the refugee crisis started. “Are you comfortable with talking about it?”, asked the first facilitator, Mara Poniros. That is how a fruitful session started, a discussion during which participants answered each other’s questions.

What is the situation right now? Some countries are willing to help refugees, but they believe that they should stay in safe zones, close to their countries. Turkey hosts about two million refugees, but Saudi Arabia does not accept any refugees. What refugees ask for is an asylum which they either get and stay, or they do not get it and are sent back to their countries. If one asks for asylum, one has to stay there until the decision is made. Most of the time, it takes about two years. They have to check several details to decide if they are going to provide asylum. In some countries like Bulgaria, the refugees are stuck there in camps for all that time. People tend to forget about the children who have to live in these conditions and, unfortunately, their childhood is “stopped” there. There are some Projects, like LUX Project in Bulgaria and Children’s Photo Workshop in the Turkish and Bulgarian refugee camps with the aim of entertaining the kids.

How to integrate the refugees? This is the most difficult thing to do. People want to help, it is easy to find a place to live or to provide food, but it is hard to find positions.

What about their education? This is the first step for the integration process. Some of them are already educated. If the integration begins at this point, it will be a lot smoother in the future. This way we can prevent collapse. We should not make them change their identity, but create a diverse identity.
After that discussion, Aristea Bismpiki, member of AEGEE-Peiraias and volunteer of Starfish, shared her one-week experience on Lesvos island, where she went to help with the arrivals of the refugees from Turkey. “The first thing you do as a volunteer there is to clean the beach. While cleaning the beach you can find many different things that refugees leave behind when they arrive, such as: clothes, inflatable boats, life jackets and every time a boat passes, new items are coming on the beach. Who would go on such a dangerous trip? This is a question many volunteers think about while they are on this stage. When the refugees arrive they do not know where they are. They need information. Some of them do not even want to change their clothes. The volunteers tasks are to count the refugees, give them information and register them. The stories they tell you are important because they flee for survival. There are many ways to help. I want to go there again, you can also go!”

Next, there was the workshop of Democracy in Practice – “The stories they confess”. Participants were separated in four groups. Each group had a story of a person influenced by the refugee crisis. Each story had three stops: the past, the journey/incident and the present of that person. The stories were cut into pieces and participants had to make a collage out of them and present the story like it was their own, in first person. There were photos, but also parts of other stories. Participants felt closer to those people, they were surprised by some of them and admired their courage.
The day was closed by Romy Cartiere, Content Manager of the EPM and proposer of the chosen topic, who did a presentation. “What can you do?” was the main question. Firstly, she explained what inspired her to propose this topic. Then she moved to “What can AEGEE do?”, where the education of its members and taking action are the key answers. Romy shared her idea of a European Project that will do Case Study trips to document the circumstances and to have direct contact with the refugees and the citizens.

How can this be supported? It can be supported by different NGOs, like Issues without borders, the Council of Europe, the European Commission and the members of the European Parliament. We are going to have more information about this Project soon.

The second day focused on the EU debt topic. The first session started with a discussion during which all participants presented what they know, from their point of view, what information they get from the media in their countries, and the audience consisting of AEGEE and non-AEGEE members interacted and answered their questions. The second session implied watching the documentary “Debtocracy” by Aris Chatzistefanou and Katerina Kitidi. The documentary examines the causes of the Greek debt crisis in 2010 and advocates for the default of “odious debt”.
The day and the event ended with the speech of Zoe Konstantopoulou, former President of the Greek Parliament, who spoke about her experience in “Truth Committee on Public Debt”. Why was this committee created? Firstly, since 2013, according to the European Law, countries are supposed to “carry out a comprehensive audit of its public finances in order, inter alia, to assess the reasons that led to the build-up of excessive levels of debt as well as to track any possible irregularity”. Until now only Greece did so. Debt audit is also an obligation stemming from the international law. Last but not least, this committee was created based on the democratic right of the citizens to know how and why this debt was created. The new government elected on January 2015 took the decision to create and support this committee. Who were the members of this committee? Experts from different countries and citizen representatives. What did this committee do? They investigated the Greek debt and found out that it is odious. They published a preliminary report on July 2015. Unfortunately, this report was never used by the government.
You can watch the whole speech of Zoe Konstantopoulou here.
You can find the preliminary report of the Truth Committee on Public Debt here.

Written by Lia Tuska, AEGEE-Kastoria/Sofia