It is always a big challenge to find a suitable date for the General Assembly. We tried nearly every single month in the second half of a year over the last years.
We started a small survey to be able to better respond to the preferences of our members for the date of the General Assembly. Please be so kind and provide your opinion.

Survey

Are you interested to organise the General Assembly 2011? If so, please let us know...

The EUNET Youth Committee currently consists of 3 active and 2 passive members. In order to work in a constructive and "european" way, as it is the standard of EUNET, we are looking forward to enlarge the number of participants of the committee. Since the last General Assembly back in 2009 we received only one application. That is why we call again upon all Eunet members:

If you have young employees, eager to get involved in european youth work, do not hesitate calling

Christian Höfer (EANRW) : Mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it / Tel : +49(0)228-949301-22
Michael Stange (CERS) : Mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it / Tel: +33 (0)3 87 60 10 15

We are looking forward to meeting those who are interested at the forthcoming Eunet General Assembly in September.

EUNET set up its own group on facebook to bring together members, friends and partners. The idea is to have a platform for discussion on European issues, to exchange thoughts and ideas or to simply chit-chat.

It's open to everyone who shares our values on a united Europe based on its citizens.

Join us!

The project Waves of Democracy 2010 which was developed by the Committee on Content and Methodology has come to a succesfull end.

You can find reports and a video of the project on the project website.

Waves of Democracy 2010

Better communication of EU issues is crucial for European democracy, stresses the Committee on Culture and Education of the European Parliament in a draft resolution adopted on Wednesday. Public service broadcasters should cover EU matters, while governments, parties and politicians need to contribute more to explaining them to citizens, say MEPs. They also suggest incorporating EU studies into school curricula.

Although the Lisbon Treaty has given Parliament more power in EU decision-making, citizens still "see Europe as still being too distant and having too little influence in solving their real problems". According to MEPs, declining voter turnout "highlights the need to continue efforts to overcome the distance between the EU and European citizens", and this should primarily be done through better communication aimed at creating a "European public sphere".

Public service broadcasters should cover the EU

While "the member states should ensure the independence of public service broadcasters", the latter "have a responsibility to cover the EU", stress MEPs. They "encourage the member States to include EU coverage when determining the remit of public service broadcasters". At the same time the committee underlines that "public broadcasters need to look critically, with full editorial independence, at their own EU coverage and set ambitious targets". Moreover, the EU "should foster the establishment of trans-national media [...], while tightening up the rules intended to safeguard pluralism and combat concentration of media ownership".

Social media: huge potential, yet with underlying dangers

MEPs in the committee "point out that social media have immense potential for reaching young people and therefore encourage the Commission and Parliament to further strengthen their activities in this area". At the same time they stress that "their reliability as sources cannot always be sufficiently guaranteed and they cannot be considered to be professional media". Moreover, "the way in which data is handled on social network platforms can in many cases be dangerous and give rise to serious breaches of journalistic ethics", therefore "caution is required when taking up these new tools". MEPs also "emphasise the importance of drawing up a code of ethics applicable to new media".

Governments, parties and politicians to play their role

MEPs underline the need for the Member States to have a specialised European affairs office, with a person responsible for explaining the local, regional and national implications of European policies and for acting as a point of reference to whom citizens can direct their attention on EU matters.

The committee also stresses the important role played by political parties in shaping public opinion on European issues, and "take the view that they should give European issues a more prominent position in their programmes".

EU and journalism should be studied at school

According to MEPs, "improving citizens’ knowledge of the EU requires EU studies to be incorporated into the school curricula". They call for "covering the EU more extensively, focusing on the historical background, purpose and workings of the EU, in all education curricula". At the same time they encourage the member states to "incorporate courses in journalism using new media into their school curricula".

EU institutional communication to be improved

Finding the recent decrease in the number of accredited journalists in Brussels "extremely worrying", MEPs suggest "supporting those currently in Brussels".  The committee would like to see a group formed from among the Brussels press corps to help improve coverage of EU news.

MEPs welcome the Commission’s and Parliament’s training schemes for journalists on EU matters and call for them to be extended. At the same time they propose giving larger budgets and greater independence to the EP information offices in member states in the field of communication.

MEPs believe that the EP internet television channel EuroparlTV "should be made more effective" while ensuring its editorial independence, and "making its content as widely available as possible for TV channels and online media who wish to use it".

From October 6 – 10, 2010 the House of Europe in Rhodes is hosting the international conference “Model Regional Co-operation” for young adults between the age of 21 and 29.

The conference picks up on the global trend of "Model United Nations" and simulates the work of international organisations for young people to gain valuable experience on negotiations and resolution-making. 

Our member Centre International de Formation Européenne offers a Master in EU Studies Online.

With the European Online Academy, the Centre international de formation européenne in cooperation with the Jean Monnet Chair of the University of Cologne organises the Certificate (one-year) and Master in EU Studies Online (two-year).

Through a combination of e-learning and concentrated face-to-face-learning phases (at weekends mainly in Berlin, Rome, Brussels, Istanbul and Budapest) the European Online Academy allows the participants to deepen and to supplement their knowledge of the EU integration process. The programmes are an outstanding opportunity for young professionals to continue their studies while pursuing their career at the same time.

Both programmes offer an accurate blend of theoretical and practical knowledge. In the first year participants gain an enhanced knowledge of recent developments in the European integration process. After having successfully completed the first year, the participants obtain the Certificate in EU Studies Online (30 ECTS). In order to specialise in one of the core subjects (Political Science, Economics and EU Law), the participants may join the second year of the Master programme - whereby the general approach to the issues and tasks is an interdisciplinary one. After having submitted and defended a Master thesis they are awarded the Master in EU Studies Online (60 ECTS).

Deadline for the online application is 5 September 2010. A limited number of scholarships are awarded to particularly qualified candidates to cover part of the fee.

For further information and application please consult our website www.eu-online-academy.org or contact Aline Palige ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ).

EUNET has created a working group with the title "EUNET web working group". The working group focuses on the possibilities to increase online activities of our network and its members as well as on a new concept for the EUNET website.

The working group works online in English language and is open to our members.

EUNET web working group

European citizens would for the first time be able to directly suggest new legislation through the European Citizens' Initiative, proposed in detail by the European Commission.

An innovation contained in the Lisbon Treaty, the ECI will allow at least one million citizens from at least one third of EU Member States to invite the European Commission to bring forward legislative proposals in areas where the Commission has the power to do so.
The proposal sets out how many signatures must be gathered from each country, and suggests that the Commission examine whether the initiative is admissible after 300,000 signatures have been gathered from three Member States. It sets a time limit of one year to collect signatures and gives the Commission four months to examine an initiative and decide how to act on it. The Commission hopes that the Council and Parliament will reach final agreement on the ECI before the end of this year, to allow the first initiatives to be brought forward in 2011.

Vice-President Viviane Reding, EU Citizenship Commissioner, said, "The Citizens' Initiative can be a very important element for citizens to make themselves heard. I welcome an instrument that will show that the EU is serious about listening to its citizens' concerns. At the same time, we have safeguards to ensure that any proposed initiative must respect our values and be in conformity with our fundamental rights." 

The European Commission has been committed to promoting volunteering for a long time. A milestone was achieved with the establishment of the European Voluntary Service in 1996 as part of the Youth in Action Programme.

The "European Year of Voluntary Activities Promoting Active Citizenship"—to give it its formal title—in 2011 will be the next step in the Commission's efforts to foster volunteering in Europe and to help civil society, local and regional communities and Member States to achieve the following objectives:

• Work towards an enabling and facilitating environment for volunteering in the EU;
• Empower volunteer organisations and improve the quality of volunteering;
• Reward and recognise achievements gained in volunteering activities; and
• Raise awareness of the value and importance of volunteering.

The European Year of Voluntary Activities Promoting Active Citizenship is widely supported by civil society and the European Parliament and is envisaged as a bottom-up campaign, in which civil society will play a large role.

The European Parliament has approved EU funding for the Year, as follows: € 3 million for preparatory actions in 2010, and € 8 million during the Year itself.

The General Assembly of EUNET will take place from September 10th to 12th 2010 at Europahaus Bad Marienberg .

Ten years ago, European leaders pledged to end poverty in the EU by 2010. As this deadline approaches, the goal is still some way off.

Not confined to developing countries, poverty is a blight on European societies too. A complex issue, poverty excludes people from leading the type of lives most of us take for granted. It often stems from causes as diverse as poor education, addiction or a deprived childhood with limited access to cultural, social and material resources.

In the EU, people are defined as poor if their income is below 60% of the median wage in the country where they live. By this definition, nearly 80 million Europeans - more than 15% of the population - are living on or below the poverty line. One European in 10 lives in a household where nobody works, and for 8% of Europeans having a job is not enough to work one's way out of poverty.

Yet the situation is not hopeless. One of Europe's key values is solidarity. Accordingly, the EU has declared 2010 the year for combating poverty and social exclusion. Among the many initiatives and activities planned, there will be a meeting bringing together people living in poverty across Europe (in May) and a roundtable discussion (in October). In addition, each EU country will have its own programme - designed to address specific problems.

Ending poverty was one of the main goals of the growth and jobs plan, (Lisbon strategy), adopted by member countries in 2000. It is hoped that the European-year campaign will be the catalyst needed to keep the fight against poverty a priority, transforming these ambitions into reality.

website

EUNET ist Partner in einer Grundtvig-Lernpartnerschaft. Ziel des zweijährigen Projekts ist die Entwicklung von methodischen Materialien für Erwachsene zum Thema „Europäische Integration". Die Methoden sollen insbesondere die persönliche Lebenserfahrung des Einzelnen und seiner Familie berücksichtigen. 

Das erste Treffen der Projektpartner hat vom 26. bis 28. Oktober 2009 in Toulouse stattgefunden.

Projektpartner sind:

innerhalb EUNET:
Maison de l'Europe Toulouse (F)
The House of Europe in Rhodes (GR)

außerhalb EUNET:
Centre Virtuel de la Connaissance sur l'Europe (L)

The Citizenship Unit of DG Education and Culture of the European Commission has created on its Citizenship website a new section dedicated to the diffusion of information and results related to the Programme Europe for Citizens.

website