IIEA completes successful Young Ideas project

The Institute ran a successful week-long session from Tuesday 12th - Friday 15th January with Transition Year students from St. Paul's CBS (link), Smithfield, Dublin 7 on Young Ideas for Europe (www.youngideasforeurope.eu) (please see our last news item on 18th December for further details about Young Ideas for Europe).

Students at St. Paul's informed themselves about the institutions of the European Union, and focused in particular on the work of the European Parliament. This year's theme was on European energy and climate change policy. The central idea of Young Ideas for Europe is that young people take a more participative and analytical approach towards the EU, by becoming active citizens and proposing their own ideas to our political representatives. During the week students broke up into political parties, and prepared their own political manifestos. These embryonic ideas were then influenced by two presentations by visiting policy experts (Joe Curtin and Stephen Douglas) from the Institute. They were then scrutinised by other students representing NGOs and other interest groups, before being debated in front of Gay Mitchell MEP and students from St. Paul's.

Throughout the week, students followed progress made by our German partner school (Merkur Akademie in Karlsruhe, Germany), which was participating in tandem with St. Paul's, and feedback throughout the week from St. Paul's students was particularly positive. The manifesto of the winning party will now be submitted to our partner organisations in Germany (IFOK and Robert Bosch Stiftung), and elements of the students ideas will be submitted to the Spanish Presidency, suggesting reforms to future direction of the Union with regard to energy policy.