After the announcement of the new contact in Tyumen not too long ago, on the 25^th of November it was announced that AEGEE-Europe has yet another Russian contact, this time in Yekaterinburg, which is the fourth-largest city in Russia, located on the border of Europe and Asia. The AEGEEan spoke to Alina Kozlineeva to find out more about this new contact!

Working for one of the universities located in Yekaterinburg, Alina found out about AEGEE through one of her students and decided to start her own contact of AEGEE out of “interest and curiosity”. For now she is the only one involved in the contact, but she has confidence in finding more members to join her soon. She has weekly meetings with students where she can talk to them and promote AEGEE.

Besides promotion and gaining new members, Alina also wants to learn as much as possible about AEGEE, get in contact with the Russian locals and get involved with the “AEGEE life and events”. Right now she is already in contact with one of the Russian locals, namely AEGEE-Voronezh, who are supporting the new contact in Yekaterinburg. Hopefully, soon AEGEE-Europe will have another local in Russia, together with Tyumen of course!

Written by Svenja van der Tol, AEGEE-Nijmegen

On the 17th of July this year an airplane departing from Amsterdam crashed, while it was flying over the Ukrainian province of Donetsk, which is currently beset by pro-Russian groups. The crash could be seen as a tragedy on itself, but it could also be seen as a part of a greater conflict.

As the occasionally violent protests in Ukraine show, lines have been drawn between a pro-European and a pro-Russian side. However, by using the words pro-Europe and pro-Russia, people give off the illusion that Russia is not a part of Europe, but rather Europe’s opposite. It also supposes that the pro-Russian faction in Ukraine wants their country to be the opposite of Europe or that the EU Association Agreement is a join-Europe-today signup sheet. When someone believes this to be true or believes Europe stands for benevolent democracies or Russia for a malevolent dictatorship, this person might suffer from a almost 2500-year-old bias that the East is evil.

In the 6th century B.C. Greek explorer Anaximander categorised the earth. He devised it to be surrounded by one large ocean and divided by three rivers, which flowed from the outer ocean to the eastern part of the Mediterranean, thus dividing the earth into three continents: Europe, Asia and Libya. (Side note: according to Anaximander’s map East-African countries like Kenya would be part of Asia)

After the Grecian victory in the 5th century B.C. Greco-Persian Wars, however, the Greeks, mainly the Athenians and their allies, conceived the divide between Asia, home of the Persians, and Europe, home of the Greeks, to be both a natural and cultural one. The East, according to the Athenians, was stained by despotism, decadence and debauchery, whereas the west was characterised by democracy, superiority and decency. This was partially, because they had recently become a democracy by overthrowing their dictator, Hippias, who fled to Ionia (nowadays the west coast of Turkey) and allied himself with the enemy Persian Empire. Victory over the Persians might at the time very well have been seen as victory of democracy against the old ways.

This biased worldview, however, especially for Europe turned out to be a fallacy, since Europe has had its fair share of autocrats in the past: Roman dictators such as Sulla and Caesar, Roman emperors such as Caligula, Claudius and Constantine, the self proclaimed French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and kings such as Charles I of England, Frederick II of Prussia and, Louis XIV ‘the Sun King’ of France might come to mind. In the 21st century it is even hard to argue that concepts like chattel slavery or modern imperialism are indicators of either superiority or decency in the West.

While Russia could be considered to be less democratic than all of the other EU states or candidate members, it does not have to be categorised as a dictatorship or so much as an evil dictatorship. When someone reads about the conflict in Ukraine, western media often tend to view the Association Agreement, between the EU and the Ukrainian government in Kiev to be a ‘haha-in-your-face’ victory over Russia. This discourse, however, actually seems to be nothing but a cocktail of Cold War sentiments, infused with the ancient ‘East-is-evil’ bias. As a matter of fact, considering its elected house of representatives one could argue that Russia is more democratic than other states in the west of Europe such as Vatican City or Liechtenstein. Simply because it lies in the East, it does not mean that Russia or the Russian people instinctively despise either democracy or Europe. As the Anaximander’s map shows, the divide between Europe and Asia seems to be somewhere between arbitrary and non-existent.

Placing the aforementioned bias aside, there is, however, a political and economical divide in the border regions of Russia, which causes the conflict in Ukraine. With the signing of the Association Agreement on the 27th of June 2014 Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine have agreed to implement a number of reforms aimed at improving democracy, the rule of law, human rights, fundamental freedoms, and at creating a well-functioning market economy and sustainable development in return for the creation of a framework to aid the enforcement of these reforms.

This Agreement, however, could have already been signed half a year ago by Ukraine’s former president Viktor Yanukovych, were it not for the political and economic alliances that presently fuel the conflict in Ukraine. Yanukovych refused to do what Ukraine’s current president Petro Poroshenko did, because of Ukraine’s shift from a non-associated economy to a politically charged one. In 2001 Ukraine had founded GUAM, an organisation to support democracy and economic development with its other members: Georgia, Azerbaijan and Moldova. One of the core principles of this organisation was that it was to be neutral, meaning not to the EU or to Russia aligned. However, between 2010 and 2013 Yanukovych not only considered Ukraine to become a member of the EU, but also to become part of the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia. In response to this, both the EU and Russia declared that Ukraine could not become a member of both economic zones. Subsequently Yanukovych was persuaded by Russia not to sign the Association Agreement with the EU and strengthen Ukraine’s ties with Russia instead. Immediately after this decision protests broke out in Kiev, prompting a regime change, a transfer of the Crimean peninsula to Russia and a civil insurgence in the East of the Ukraine supported by Russia in order to pursue its economic interests with Ukraine and on top of which a plane from Amsterdam crashed.

In short, by signing the Association Agreement the government in Kiev has agreed to aid in conforming Ukraine’s democratic norms as well as its trade and customs regulations to those of the EU and that much of the European market will open up to Ukrainian exports. With the signing of similar Agreements by Georgia and Moldova these countries will receive similar benefits. Furthermore, now three of the four members of GUAM have aligned themselves with the European Union through these Association Agreements, it might become interesting for Azerbaijan to ponder upon a pro-European course as well.

However, as the plane crash demonstrates, when two political bodies fight, in this case for the pursuit of economic interests, civilians die. The fighting continues every day in Ukraine and the Association Agreement is by no means an end to it. However, without bias at least it becomes visible that the insurgence is not a glorified conflict between Good and Evil, democracy against dictatorships or West versus East.

Written by Willem Laurentzen, AEGEE-Nijmegen

As every year, the European Charlemagne Youth Prize (ECYP) took place in the city of Aachen, under its 7th edition. After Europe on Track’s major success last year, some AEGEE members gathered in Charlemagne’s city in order to know which project would be its successor. Youth unemployment, selfies, remarkable guests, journalism and the situation in Ukraine have just been some of the major highlights of this event that took place in late May.

1. Our Europe takes the legacy of its predecessor, Europe on Track

Peter Laugesen (Our Europe), with VP of the European Parliament, Anni Podimata

Denmark was the winner of this year’s edition of the Charlemagne Youth Prize, with the project Vores Europa (‘Our Europe’). This project consisted of a 12-month long journey taken by Peter Laugesen and Elena Askløf, who travelled through 24 European countries and interviewed young people about their expectations and wishes for Europe. They published radio podcasts, films, articles, interviews and pictures on their website, and even took up a experimental Skype session in collaboration with 21 Danish schools, involving 2,800 young students whom the creators talked to. It was a truly outstanding project, self-funded by its own creators and it was certainly one of the ‘favourite ones’ to achieve the biggest prize.

The story of Our Europe might seem familiar to many of you… yes! Many of us recalled the Europe on Track project of AEGEE-Europe, which won last year’s Charlemagne Youth Prize. Looks like the recipe for success in a ECYP candidature is very simple: involve young people from several countries, talk about their concerns and reach the policy-makers with audiovisual material and social media.

2. Youth (un)employment, the hottest topic

The three winners: Denmark, the Netherlands and Cyprus

One of the biggest topics addressed by the Danish Our Europe project was with no doubts youth unemployment, which has reached staggering figures in countries such as Spain or Italy. However, this topic was the main issue by several of the 28 projects presented. Both the second and third place winners of the ECYP, the Netherlands and Cyprus, had youth unemployment as their focus.

On the one hand, JouwDelft & Co., the Dutch national winner, hosted a European youth congress in November 2012 which aimed to find local-scale solutions to reduce youth unemployment in Europe and brought young active citizens and policy advisors from several countries together. The outcome of the conference was a resolution on these recommendations, which was issued to the European Parliament in November 2013. On the other hand, Youth Dynamics is a Cypriot youth organisation that hosted a training course in April 2013 that involved seminars, presentations, workshops and discussions based on the same topic, gathering 26 participants from nine EU countries.

3. EBM Valleta, our AEGEE Representative

Mariella getting the award in Aachen

Mariella Rapa (AEGEE-Valletta) was the representative of AEGEE in the list of nominees for the final Youth Prize, representing the European Boards’ Meeting that took place in Valletta in February 2013, which gathered around two hundred AEGEEans under the topic of ‘the future of Europe’.

Previously interviewed by our journalist Cosmina Bisboaca (AEGEE-Torino), AEGEE-Valletta stated that it was “a very big honour” to be the National winner in Malta, especially taking into account that other strong organisations such as JEF Malta submitted their projects too.

Chucky Bartolo told Cosmina the reasons why EBM Valletta decided to run for the Charlemagne Youth Prize: “The organising team that worked on the EBM spent a lot of their time and energy to make the event as great as it could be. Knowing that we had worked so hard to make an event like this meant that we were able to recognise that the EBM was worth submitting. Inspired by the success of “Europe on Track”, we submitted the project for the Charlemagne Youth Prize”. Despite not making it to the ‘final three’, Mariella got the National Award out of the hands of Anni Podimata (vice-president of the European Parliament), and showed the pride of the whole local for being among the 28 finalists.

4. Youth at the back… but not afraid to ask

The 28 national winners of the Charlemagne Youth Prize were afterwards invited at the Charlemagne Forum, which gathered several ‘top’ guests. Unfortunately, the young representatives were forced to be sitting in the back, whereas the jury and guests were right on the front, sitting comfortably and having snacks and drinks next to them. For many, that was the vivid image that young people were merely playing a secondary role in this Charlemagne Prize, but we were not afraid to take the driver’s seat, ask questions and confront the opinion of the older experts… even if we had to stand up and there was no microphone available for us at first.

Especially significant was the speech given by Luis Alvarado Martínez, president of AEGEE-Europe and representative of Europe on Track as the ECYP winner of 2013, who encouraged the organisers of the Charlemagne Youth Prize to involve young people more actively: “It’s them who should be sitting on the front”. Moreover, he suggested the idea of them selecting the winners of the ECYP – after all, what is a ‘youth prize’ if it is not selected by youth representatives?

5. ‘Top’ guests… taking AEGEEan’s selfies

“A selfie is the picture you take yourself, right?”

Besides Ms. Podimata, who was replacing the president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, there were other remarkable guests among the visitors in Aachen. One of them was the former president of the European Central Bank, mr. Jean-Claude Trichet, who was taking part at the panel discussion of the Charlemagne Forum. But specially striking was the appearance in the middle of the Forum of Herman van Rompuy, president of the European Council. During the question round, two AEGEE members (Anna, from AEGEE-Barcelona, and Erik, from AEGEE-Bratislava) were sending their questions to the pannelists, when all of a sudden people started to applause. Van Rompuy arrived, the question round was interrupted and he gave his speech where several topics such as the previous Sunday’s EP elections were tackled.

In fact, Mr. Van Rompuy embarked in a small inter-generational dialogue with our AEGEEans Luis and Mariella, when they asked to take a selfie with him. “You mean, the picture that you take yourself, right?”, rumour has it that he asked.

6. The situation in Ukraine in the Charlemagne Youth Prize

Once Herman Van Rompuy had arrived at the Forum, Luis asked him about the situation in Ukraine, and he gave an answer paraphrasing Tolstoy (“we, Europe and Russia, have one thing in common – Christianity”), that our member of AEGEE-Bratislava, Erik Redli, reported perfecty in his article at Foreign Students.

Those were not the only remarkable guests of the week – in the Charlemagne Prize ceremony, there were the prime ministers of Moldova and Ukraine, Iurie Leanca and Arseniy Yatseniuk, right on the aftermath of the Ukrainian elections. In fact, the event gathered a few hundreds of protesters from Ukraine and Russia in the main square of Aachen, protesting against the war – but from different sides. Both were divided into two blocks and the police had to intervene, as reported by our friend from OneEurope Yuliya Kosharevska, even though there were no major incidents.

7. AEGEE-Aachen and OneEurope, a top cooperation for a ‘top event’

A journalists’ “newsroom” moment

Under the special request of the city council of Aachen, AEGEE-Aachen organised a ‘side event’ for journalists who would cover the Charlemagne Youth Prize for their national media and other internet platforms, in order to give more visibility to a prize which has proven to be of a major importance. Our ‘polar bears’ seeked the cooperation with the OneEurope magazine, who also reported actively about the happenings in Aachen and brought their expertise in journalism.

The atmosphere between AEGEE and OneEurope members was great and it truly felt like a real newsroom sometimes. Moreover, AEGEE-Aachen provided a wonderful social programme with a city tour around the city, a party with the national winners of the ECYP… and the members of OneEurope could experience for the first time what a European Night was. Congratulations, AEGEE-Aachen, and thank you for such an effort!

And next year… it can be you! This year’s Charlemagne Youth Prize event has proven that a project that gathers young people from several European countries, that deals with some of the ‘hot’ topics in European youth and also involves policy-makers and advisors can be eligible to win. It is acknowledged that we have taken part in many AEGEE projects with a big potential that comply with these same characteristics. So, what are you waiting for? Maybe the next Charlemagne Prize could be in AEGEE’s hands again!

Written by Anna Gumbau, AEGEE-Barcelona

What happens if you are LGBT and you live or you decide to visit Russia? In both cases you may end up in jail! If you are a visitor you may be in jail for two weeks and then you will be deported!

Putin and Kremlin believe that the youngsters must be protected from “bad” homosexuality so they banned any “homosexual” behavior inside the country. Last year, Moscow’s Top Court banned Gay Pride for a hundred years. According to the Russian LGBT Network, homophobic violence increased after the Russian anti-gay law passed, because the attackers are not afraid of legal reprisals. These attacks are mostly motivated by right-wing activists. All of this is happening while Russia prepares the Winter Olympics 2014 in Sochi where many LGBT people are expected to arrive, among them are athletes, officials, volunteers and visitors.

The Winter Olympics have been called for boycott due to the ‘anti gay’ legislation. Picture: Raul Pacheco-Vega

With the adoption of the new laws, many people proposed to boycott Russian products, like vodka. In addition, there are pages on Facebook calling on people to boycot the Olympic Games. Among the voices against anti-gay legislation is also the singer Cher. As she revealed in her interview in the Canadian magazine Maclean’s, she turned down the proposal for being an ambassador for the Games and she said no to opening the show.

On the other hand Blake Skjellerup, ice-skater from New Zealand, said that he will wear a rainbow pin to show his support for LGBT people in Russia. Also Elton John stated in The Guardian that he feels like he needs to perform in Russia in order to help gay people.

A big share of the international media turned against the Russian authorities for these laws, paying special attention to the reaction of public figures as well as NGOs and citizens across the world.

Russia’s law depicts homosexuality as something bad and immoral that young people should be protected from. These laws violate the right to non-discrimination, and by silencing all LGBT issues it protects people who commit violence against homosexual people. Moreover, it creates a difficult situation for people who want to visit Russia. This affects AEGEE as well since we promote human rights and the mobility of young people.

There are governments that reacted to those laws. For example, when Putin visited the Netherlands, Amsterdam was decorated in rainbow flags. But it needs to be something more efficient from official organizations like International Olympics Committee, European Union and United Nations because after the passing of the laws, the crimes against homosexuals increased and they remained unpunished by the local courts.

The anti-LGBT laws also has the support of the more conservative sector of society. The Russian Orthodox Church and Christianity have a lot of influence in Russia and, as we could read in The Huffington Post, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill said the following about equal marriage: “This is a very dangerous apocalyptic symptom, and we must do everything in our power to ensure that sin is never sanctioned in Russia by state law, because that would mean that the nation has embarked on a path of self-destruction”. However, homosexuality was removed from the list of mental disorders in 1990 (according to the World Health Organization).

Those laws remind us of the communist era in Russia when homosexuals used to end up in Gulag labour camps. They remind us of the Second World War, when homosexuals were arrested and went to concentration camps where they had to wear pink triangles, and where many of them got raped and died. They remind us of the Middle East where many people keep on murdering or forcing sex reassignment surgery to homosexuals, using the Shari’a as an excuse.

Now a European country acts like these regimes that remind us of the darkest pages in history and official international organizations keep silent, not only for Russia, but for every homophobe law in every country of the world.

Written by Dimitra P. Amorgianou, AEGEE-Kastoria