The Crow's Nest - Issue 3

the

Crow’s Nest Issue - 3

#quoteoftheday

Breaking Newa

German Efficiency / European Naval Flags

#ThroughTheLens

Session in Numbers

What is the European Youth Parliament / Critique of the EU /

Thank You / SettING sail

Editorial

editorial And so we come to the goodbyes. Our time together slowly draws to an end and we must bid farewell to EYP, at least for the moment. We may have been in the background editing and working, but we are still sad. One never forgets one’s first session. We both, as you hopefully have been, were instantly captivated and exited to continue participating in EYP.

We could not make a list of thank yous without bringing up the people that made this all possible- our terrific organisers of course. The countless hours, days, weeks, even months of work they have put in to make all this happen for us can not be overstated. Our Head-Organisers, Lukas Rosenkranz and Lara Lindlahr, have invested their lives into this project and we can only hope they found the same satisfaction and enjoyment of this session that we have.

Throughout this session our journalists have been hard at work preparing articles, photos and videos for your enjoy- And last but most certainly not least we would like to thank ment. We are very thankful to have had such a fun, creative, the delegates, truly the most important members of any sesconstructive and simply delightful team to work with. sion. Everything that happens at a session is done for the sake of your experience and making it as memorable as posThank you as well to our high quality, entertaining and ma- sible. Sadly we have not had the chance, hidden in our edijestically beautiful chairs team. They have led you through torial cave, to meet many of you but we still can confidently the various procedures of a session and throughout been say that we are genuinely exited to get to know you at a supportive and helpful towards us, even when they were session somewhere in Europe sometime soon. • tired and stressed. A personal mention here must go to our great President, Miss Lucy Bradfield. We thank her for always having been there for emotional support and for just Theodor Hall (CH) & Berkok Yüksel (TR) being there, even in the late hours.

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#Banter

#quoteoftheday „The story of life is quicker than the wink of an eye, the story of love is hello and goodbye... until we meet again.“

- Jimi Hendrix

Brought to you by Hamburg Media Team; Alyona Vyshnevska (UA), Teresa Kerkhoff (DE), George Ross (UK), Sorcha Foster (UK), Gonzalo Sola Rodriguez (ES), Jannis Kühlencord (DE), Tom Wagenhammer (DE), Giorgina Giani (GR), Anna Pusa (FI) Video-Editor: Oliver Kötter (DE) Editors: Berkok Yüksel (TR), Theodor Hall (CH)

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#BreakingNews

An Update from the Real World

Giorgina Giani (GR) reports all that we have missed through the last few days.

The session is almost coming to an end and has managed to keep us very busy every single moment. Thus, it is high time we found out what is going on at the same time at the rest of the globe.

Education is not all about academic knowledge and studying. It is also about being informed about what is going on to rest of the world. We consider it really important that some information that has been headlines the past days is sum up.

Pyongyang, North Korea - North Ko-

rean government has scrapped all non-aggression pacts with its southern counterpart and shut down their shared border.

After multiple UN sanctions following nuclear tests the situation seems like it may escalate out of control. China and the USA have condemned the actions by both Korean states. •

Caracas, Venezuela - After the death

of the President Hugo Chavez, who ruled the state for more than 14 years, Venezuela found a new president. That happened on the 8th of March, as former bus driver and eventually Chavez’s Vice President Nicolas Maduro took the lead by becoming president. Despite the fact that Chavez had promoted him as the next leader, concerns that this way of gaining power is against Venezuela’s constitution are high. In any case, Maduro is forced to declare elections in no more than a month. After them, we will find out the new direction that the country will choose. •

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During the Session

Kabul, Afghanistan - The country

has faced a lot of challenges and on March 9th, one more was added to its record. The ministry of defense was the target of a suicide bomb attack that killed at least 9 people. Amongst them were army soldiers and civilians.

The Taliban has taken full responsibility for the action. No matter how the government is going to proceed, suicide attacks have always been a huge problem in Middle Eastern countries, leading to the death of a staggeringly large amount of people. •

Milan, Italy - The country’s former president and candidate at the recent elections is again at the

spotlight and at court. In the past Silvio Berlusconi had to deal with the accusation of economic frauds and of a claimed relationship with an underage prostitute, issues that had become headlines. This time Silvio Berlusconi on March 7th was sentenced to a year in jail by the Milanese court, for a wiretapping scandal that took place in 2005. Generally, Berlusconi has been going through a lot of trials and still has a long way to go. As it seems, justice is punishing the Italian politician. •

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Opinion: German Efficiency

German Efficiency: A Love Affair Sorcha Foster (UK) works out the roots of one nations discipline.

German’s are notorious for their punctuality, efficiency and organisation across the world. From the outset the regional session of Hamburg 2013 has lived up to this stereotype. The arrival instructions, the transport and scheduling have always been formulated so as even the most directionless individual could not help falling into line.

Coming from Ireland where five minutes quickly stretches into a number of hours of tea drinking and chit chat, punctuality is the exception rather than the norm.

Germany is a dream land. The trains arrive on time and ten minutes until departure means precisely that, not a minute more or less.

Arriving at the airport from Dublin, there was visible annoyance among German passengers at the thirty minute delay. They gesticulated widely at their watches and mutter some incomprehensible phrases under breath. But the message was clear, we don’t do late.

German organisational feats have always been a source of great surprise and pleasure for me personally. It is always a shock to the system to find that there is no rounding to

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the nearest ten minutes as at home. Here, a departure in eleven minutes means just that. Running like clockwork does not begin to describe the precision here. It can be attributed to the large bureaucratic structure as well as the seemingly inbuilt, innate efficiency in all Germans. I have yet to meet a single native who could realistically be described as disorganised in any country other than their own.

However, is this efficiency synonymous with rigidity? Is there any real human emotion underlying this?

Maybe these questions are legitimate or are merely the result of jealousy on the parts of less well performing economies. Ultimately, the organisation of German’s has resulted in a prudent approach to household financial management, leading to less debt and improved economic prowess following the fiscal crisis in the Eurozone.

Efficiency, effectiveness and organisation are all attributes which should be celebrated not stigmatised. We should probably all try and take a leaf from this German rulebook.

Opinion: European Flags

All Aboard

George Ross (UK) explains the relevance of EU‘s naval flags.

It is quite evident that The Crow’s Nest has put a lot em- There is a moral to this message, over the course of this

session you have met many new people, all of whom fly a flag. As you are currently at an EYP session you have been afforded the opportunity to bond and make friends with your fellow delegates very quickly. Over the past few days you have lived with these newfound friends and undertaken every activity on the big blue sea, from playing games to debating complex issue. This is the power of EYP, through So as you can see the ensigns and jacks above can be radically your committee work, through General Assembly and overdifferent to the civilian flags we are familiar with. The flags all throughout the whole of the session you have been able we usually see flying, the flags that represent whole nations, to experience the thoughts and ideas you wouldn’t have accan vary whether you are on land or at sea. Your location cess to otherwise. • often influences your perception of the world around you more profoundly than you would expect. phasis on a nautical theme throughout all of the issues. Many people do not recognise how large of a navy the EU commands and that 21 of the 27 its member states have contributed ships of a variety of shapes and sizes. The flags below each represent one of the member states of the EU that had donated boats to the combined naval force.

UK

Sweden

Spain

Romania

Portugal

Poland

Netherlands

Malta

Lithuania

Latvia

Italy

Ireland

Germany

France

Finland

Greece

Bulgaria

Belgium

Denmark

Estonia

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#SessioninNumbers

HAMBURG IN NUMBERS

by Jannis Kühlencord (DE)

53 female delegates Average age: 17,6 40 male delegates

1592

159 times

sheets of paper fIlled

someone said ‚Oh my God that‘s Chris Browne!‘

365 kg cookies eaten

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(coffee break cookies)

flip charts used #3 Media Team papers published #2 videos watched 8

2365 post-its used

#Hamburg2013

75767 km travel to the event by participants in total

1345 25 cups of coffee consumed

litres of cola

612 km

travel to the event by participant in average

394

cans of energy drink

221 kilos caffeine consumed in total

=3,1 hours average time of sleep for officials

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AWESOME EVENT 99

#ThroughTheLens

Current Affairs

Gonzalo SRodriguez assesses the complex relat the EU and Venezuela in the aftermath of recent Chavez.

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General Assembly

tionship between passing of Hugo

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#ThroughTheLens

Current Affairs

Gonzalo SRodriguez assesses the complex relat the EU and Venezuela in the aftermath of recent Chavez.

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#SessionwassoBantah

tionship between passing of Hugo

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Report

Hamburg and beyond:

The European Youth Parliament 14

The European Youth Parliament

EYP unveiled The mast keeping the ship sailing

Anna Pusa (FI) advises you on how to continue EYPing in your National Committee.

What you, dear delegates, have experienced here in Hamburg is what the EYP essentially is about. We gather in sessions all over Europe, be they Regional, National or International sessions as well as International Fora. There we find ourselves in the midst of Teambuilding, Committee Work and General Assembly.

However, what you might not realise while at any session is the broad organisational structure that exists behind EYP and its network of events throughout Europe. What is important to note is that this vast web of connections running through the heart of Europe is almost entirely run on a voluntarily basis.

As Franziska points out, the NC’s play a huge role in the further development of the EYP as an organisation. Apart from doing a huge amount of fundraising work for upcoming sessions and maintaining and developing a platform of knowledge gathered about how to organise different events, the work of the 8 members on the board of EYP Germany and other NC’s is all about connecting people and strengthening pan-european links.

The Board of National Committees discusses on an international level the current policy issues and where the EYP should be going and this is an exhange which can be most fruitful. The BNC also recognises new NC’s as the EYP is spreading to new countries. Recently EYP Lithuania was acceded The overall umbrella organisation of the European Youth into the EYP and thus created an new avenue of knowledge Parliament is the Schwarzkopf Foundation. The Schwarz- exchange. This is holds true even here in Hamburg with the kopf Foundation provides a framework for the EYP and it presence of Paulius Dovidavicious (LT) our international consists of the Board of National Committees (BNC), the organiser. By experiencing first-hand how a German RSC Governing Body (GB) and the Executive Director. The is organised he allows Lithuania to gain and insight into how Board of National Committees is the collection of Nation- other NC’s work. al Committees (NC), which currently consists of 36 fully recognised member organisations and 4 approved initiative organisations. Franziska Maier, the President of EYP Germany, To reiterate the words of Franziska Maier, “National Comexplains how the German National Committee coordinates mittees work together very well and it is very established that officials and delegates are sent to sessions organised by the EYP activity within the country: “We organise all the sessions that take place in Germany, foreign NC’s. This is one of the main things that gives the which are the regional sessions, the national session and EYP its lively character” . • about two fora per year. We also organise trainings and have an outreach project called EYP at school.”

“EYP is a panEuropean media campaign that allows people to raise their voices.“ -Lucy Bradfield

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Opinion

Europe: All at Sea

Gonzalo Sola Rodriguez (ES) considers the EU‘s future while trying to find an answer to questions of the EU‘s fate. What reasons do we have to stick to a „European Identıty“ or does this idea belong in the history books? Which people really have the power in the EU?

Off to New Shores. It is the perfect sentence to describe the attitude that European countries should follow right now with the purpose of solving this current social and economic crisis. By following our session theme, we could perfectly say that Europe is currently lost in the middle of the ocean and it has no idea how to find the necessary shore. But, why is Europe an isolated island in the middle of the deep-sea?

Nowadays, if we take a deep look at how the financial crisis is trying to be solved and, simultaneously we reflect about these aims that justified the creation of the Euro we are able to draw some conclusions.

First of all, I believe the Euro is a tool that consolidates some of neoliberalism’s dogmas like the stabilisation of prices, the budgetary equilibrium and the incitement of competence.

Maybe, this is the unique occasion to wonder how our conti- These neoliberal thoughts have never been directed towards nent and the European Union has lost its course. If we anal- the aim of solving social issues like the reduction of unemyse the integration process that made the European Union a ployment rates or the defense of the Welfare State. “stronger” community, we will find that almost every single step the Member States took to accelerate the aforementioned unification has been made on the basis of economic Furthermore, this neoliberal doctrine has been accepted matters. Nonetheless, we all have the feeling that the Eu- and adopted by the European Central Bank which is acropean Union is much more than an attempt to create an tually completely independent of the European Member economic union. It is also a political and a social intent to States governments.The reality of being totally independent create a way to live in common as European citizens. So, in means that the ECB’s actions and decisions are out of demy opinion there is an enormous mismatch between what mocracy’s perimeter. Consequently the people, who are at we think Europe is and what it really is and how it has been the heart of democracy, do not have capacity to control it. founded.

This scenario of non-control is the ideal situation for the For example, one of the biggest actions that apparently make financial speculation that some States Members have been the EU look like a real community of countries was the cre- suffering from since the beginning of the current crisis. The ation of the single currency: the Euro. We will not doubt all attacks based on the financial speculation have become the the benefits that this decision has given the European Union worst enemy that the EU has had for more than fifty years. • in general and some Member States in particular. Yet, we judge the goals behind that implementation.

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Critique of Europe

How can we resume our heading and find the shore? We cannot guess the future, but we are able to know that those who have control of the rudder are not able to make us achieve our destiny. For this reason, maybe, we should start to consider how to be the captains of our own futures.

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#Creditwhereit‘sdue

Thank You Teresa Kerkhoff (DE) tells us about the hardest workers at the session, the people that make it all happen. If you see one of our ever-reliable and good-spirited organisers, be sure to thank them. They deserve it.

Did you ever ask yourself who arranges coffee break? Did you ever wonder why we are able to sleep in Gymnasium Oberalster? I am sure that most of you did not. There are people that have been working towards and anticipating this session for a year, these people are the organisers. While we have been working on articles, resolutions or speeches, these people arranged the next coffee break, transfer and even the parties. Under the direction of Lara and Lukas, they pulled all the loose strands together with the result being the Regional Selection Conference in Hamburg 2013.

Thanks to their work we were able to enjoy days filled with interesting discussions, productive brainstormings, a lot of fun and interesting conversations. The session went by so

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quickly and smoothly, indicating the amazing work of the team. Whenever you consider any element of the session, you should keep in mind the organisers’ work. The teambuilding bags have been prepared, the school has been cleaned up, lunch has been prepared and transfers have been arranged by them. All that would not have been possible without their work.

Thank you Simon, Timm, Paulius, Lydia, Hannah, Jonathan, Charlotte, Jannis, Ariane, Krystyna, Romy, Till, Franziska and Dorothea and particularly the wonderful Head-Organisers, Lara and Lukas for this amazing session! •

How to Continue?

Setting Sail in EYP Learn how you can get involved in EYP Germany and beyond.

So you weren‘t selected for the National Selection Conference? Despair not! Many ways lead into commitment in EYP. Even many of this session‘s officials have never been to an International Session before. There are three sessions that might be relevant for you: 23rd German National Selection Conference Kiel The National Selection Conference in Kiel is the goal for delegates of the Regional Selection Conferences in Germany which took place in Aschaffenburg, Leipzig and Hamburg this year. Nine German and most probably a few international delegations will gather here to discuss maritime politics, a theme that is a perfect fit for the session venue, the seaport Kiel.

welcome@eyp.de

info@eyp.de International Sessions of Georgia and Latvia The 74th International Session in Tbilisi, Georgia which takes place this October and the 75th International Session in Riga, Latvia in Spring 2014 might be the ultimate goal for you in your delegate career. If you won a place in the German NSC you might be lucky or rather good enough to get a spot at one of these sessions. They are usually more than double the length of a Regional or National Selection Conference and have a high academic level in terms of chairing and session journalism.

In order to know how you can add to the EYP experience, dia team wants to provide the delegates with information we want to give you a few bits of information. There are, and reflection material. generally, three roles other than delegate at a session which are organiser, journalist and chairperson.

Last, but certainly not least, committees need chairpersons to achieve fruitful discussions with convincing approaches Organisers are involved in planning and organising the ses- in the resolutions. Chairpersons need to prepare for topics sion from a very early time before the respective session just like delegates in order to be able to follow and lead the with the head organiser co-ordinating and controlling ev- discussions into the right direction. erything. There are different responsibilities like transport and logistics, fundraising, cultural programme, delegate On top of all of that, you should keep in mind that you support and many more. should stick to smaller sessions first and then slowly build up your experience to enable your participation in major Journalists are the eyes and ears of the session. A media sessions. Go step by step. It is worth it! team is not only constituted by journalists but also by the editors who layout and proofread and the video editor who EYP is looking forward to welcoming new people. And one tries to capture the session spirit in films. Ultimately, a me- of them may be you. •

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