ID.Tampere 2012 - Regional session of EYP Finland

Issue 1

The Team 2

AFET I 3 AFCO 4

AFET II 5 CLIM 6

CULT 7

DROI 8

LIBE II 9

LIBE I 10

EMPL 11

ITRE 12

Editorial

Contents

What you hold in your hands at this very moment is called my sleepless night. It also goes by the name of the session newspaper, ID. As many of you hopefully are aware the theme of the session is the identitities of Europe and this paper is an ID card of the press team, a fingerprint if you will. Me and Maria, your two editors, and our press team of 8 journalists are here to provide you with entertainment as well as new topics to think about. You can read our thoughts in the newspapers and see us go crazy on the videos. Hopefully this will make you less scared to go crazy yourselves. Because at the end of the day, this session will only give to you what you are willing to give in return. It will evoke thought and open your mind, but only if you are prepared to let it. I am not exaggerating when I say this session could change your life. I would be exaggerating if I promised you it will. So just as this issue, so also is your time at this session, in your hands . Enjoy.

Yours, Saga and Maria

The TeamOlivier, LIBE I: Glad I took a jacket, it’s pretty cold outside. Also Finnish sounds really weird!

Stefano, ITRE: Welcome to Tampere Regional session! We have been busy writing articles for you. Have a great time, and as Olivier said keep sight of your coat!

Baris, EMPL and LIBE II: Welcome to EYP, where a Turk, an Italian and a French person can be found talking about my little pony #weirdpeopleinEYP

Jenni, CLIM: Less sleep + more coffee = awesome session

Rebecca, AFET I: I feel a bit hyper. Maybe it’s because of all the vitamins I took…

Michela, DROI and AFET II: The press team wel-comes you.

PS we have coffee and biscuits.

Saku, CULT: Friendship is magic #mylittlepony

2Anu, AFCO: Be open-minded and remem-ber to enjoy!

Syria: the land of conflict and chaos

Rebecca Kiiski

Everyday we open our televisions, radios and papers to watch the news and see what is happening around the world. It seems al-most certain that there will be something on Syria. It may be about a shooting inci-dent, a riot or a bomb that has exploded.

Since March 2011 the unrest and dissatisfac-tion in Syria has been growing. All the way from the 1960‘s the same family have been in pow-er in the country. They represent the powerful and wealthy Shiite minority that consists of 12 % of the population. During their regime human rights have been ignored, dissidents arrested and e.g. Facebook, Youtube and Wikipedia have been banned. Basic human rights such as the freedom of speech and national security are not part of the citizens’ everyday lives and they have to live in constant fear. Syria’s human rights are thought to be the worst in the world.

The lack of rights, the government only focus-ing on their own advantage and poor living conditions have led to anger and protests by the people who are now being called the re-bels of Syria. As a result of all these protests tens of thousands of people have been killed and hundreds of thousands have had to flee their own country out of fear. Syria consists

of numerous religions and ethnic minorities. The rebels don’t represent all these differ-ent groups, but they all agree that Bashar al-Assad should not be the one ruling anymore.

The EU’s power is not limitless and it is start-ing to feel like they are running out of options. On its own there is little the EU can do con-cerning Syria. The idea of a military interven-tion is gaining strenght by the day. For the EU to make a difference the best chance would be to cooperate with the Arabic League and/or the UN. The UN though is still incapable of doing anything due to China and Russia using their veto power to their own advantage. I per-sonally don’t necessarily support the idea of a military intervention as the innocent civilians would get hurt and it would give the govern-ment another reason to blame the West. An alternative solution could be tackling the prob-lem from Syria’s surrounding countries, which is the current approach. But would this work, or is military intervention the best option?

What can the EU do to ensure a democratic future for Syria and more importantly how will it stay democratic instead of a new dictator ris-ing to power? Nothing that has been tried has succeeded so far. So what is the next step?

3

A Facelift for the EU

Anu Pekkarinen

Democratic deficit, euroscepticism and a negative image of the EU. These are some of the issues the committee on Constitu-tional Affairs (AFCO), is going to have to overcome during this weekend in Tampere.

The European Union is a substantial part of each of our lives as European citizens and it is a shame so many of our fellow Europeans don’t find it as important as it is. This has lead to a democratic deficit: in the 2009 elections an all-time low level of voting activity was reached, as there was a 43% turnout. As the EU is obviously being considered a distant institution by the vot-ers, what should the EU do to attract the peo-ple and to increase the overall voter turnout? As some of the EU member states have faced severe economic difficulties recently, the nega-

tive image of the EU has just kept on getting stronger in the eyes of its citizens, who may feel they now have to pay for the problems of other countries as well. This negative image, and how to turn it into a more positive one is a matter the committee is trying to find a solution to. How could the EU be made to ap-pear more citizen friendly and appealing? Should for example the power of the media be taken into account when finding the solution?

When even some of your the politicians and parties in our respective countries consider the European Union the “bad-guy” of a story, it is not surprising some people may begin to have their own doubts about the EU ad be-come prejudiced against it. If my own country and its leaders don’t trust it, why should I?

AFCO has quite a task ahead of them by tackling these issues and making all of us convinced their solutions are the right ones. With the expertise and guidance of Alex and Riikka our won-derful new delegates of AFCO have a lot of brainstorming and pondering to do in order to overcome these issues concerning the democratic deficit, euroscepticism and the negative im-age of the EU. I bet we are all eager to hear what this committee has to say!

4

Capability vs responsibility

Michela Dell’Acqua

“At this late hour, there is only one way to peace-fully prevent Iran from getting atomic bombs. That is by placing a clear red line on Iran’s nu-clear weapons program. Red lines don’t lead to war; red lines prevent war.” These are the words of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his speech at the UN General Assembly. He also stated that Iran would complete the sec-ond necessary stage to make a nuclear bomb.

At the same time Iran denied that it is enrich-ing uranium for military purposes, stating that these enrichment operations are made to provide an alternative to the oil energy pro-duction and to fuel medical reactors. Never-theless Iran refused to cease enriching ura-nium when asked by the UN Security Council.This decision leads to the imposition of eco-nomic sanctions from the US and EU. The European Union has imposed an oil embargo, sanctions on the petrochemical industry and fi-nancial restrictions. As a response Iran threat-ened to close the Strait of Hormuz. The cur-rent situation is not acceptable both for Iran’s population and the international community.The economic sanctions imposed to Iran are causing a lot of economic difficulties in the country, but very soon the oil embargo will produce negative effects in the EU as well as we depend on Iran’s oil. For this reason a right balance between diplomatic relations and sta-bility is needed. P5+1 negotiations have to

go on and there is need for new and original ideas. Iran goes on stating that it is its right to enrich uranium for research and scientific scopes. Thus it should collaborate deeply with the full International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and reassure the international com-munity of their peaceful intents so the world would be less suspicious. That would make it possible for Iran to go on with his nuclear program. In fact the caution of some coun-tries is related to historical events and their fear of Islamic radicalism. They are afraid of Islamic radicalism in s country that has the possibility to create and use a nuclear bomb.

If Iran reconciles with the EU and USA, the economic sanctions will be lifted. This would lead to an ease in Iran’s economic problems and will allow them to resume oil exportations. This fact will have positive effects also among the population who actually cannot bear these economic difficulties. As recent polls have dem-onstrated: when asked if the Iranian people would halt Iran’s nuclear program, in return for stopping the economic sanctions imposed against Teheran, 63% were in favor of sus-pending uranium enrichment. For these rea-sons a balanced solution is needed, not only for the world, but for the Iranian population as well.

5

Climate change is something we are all at least vaguely familiar with. We are constantly told by different sources how all our actions when it comes to consuming make a differ-ence. The thing is though, no matter how many of us think and act green, it makes lit-tle difference when the biggest polluting coun-tries in the world, China and the USA, refuse to reduce their green house gas emissions.

I don’t mean to sound sceptical—or maybe I do—but a single person’s choices don’t seem to make that much of a difference on the EU scale either. Almost 80% of EU’s green house gas emissions are energy related, and there’s only so much an individual can do about ener-gy supplies. Climate change is a global crisis and it must also be dealt with on a global level.

There have been attempts to deal with climate change on the international level, but so far all the attempts have been in vain. No agreement has been made yet and the growing econo-

Climate challenge

Jenni Leppänen

mies of South America and Asia are in no hur-ry to sign any agreements that might decrease their economic growth. EU has done its part by reducing its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, but the EU’s actions haven’t made a difference globally—instead of lowering the amount of CO2 emissions, they have risen on a global scale.Sustainable and affordable energy is something that is needed more and more in the modern world. We can’t always rely on polluting and lim-ited fossil fuels, but how do we replace the en-ergy we get from them? Whether the answer is nuclear power or renewable energy sources such as wind or solar power is the real question.

These are just a couple of the many environ-ment related problems the Committee on Climate Change has to tackle. Their task is a big one—to find solutions for our future. It will be difficult, I’m sure, but I trust the del-egates to come up with their own fresh vision that they will be ready to defend in the GA.

6

Streaming - a breakthrough

Saku Purhonen

Do you remember the times when, when you wanted to listen to music, you had to buy a real CD by your favourite artist? I do. Even if you just wanted one song from the album. The other option was to record the song from the radio onto tape. Now your favourite music is just a couple of clicks away for the same price that I use for coffee a month, thanks to Spotify. Spotify was an online breakthrough that funda-mentally changed the music business. Consum-ers got a chance to access free music when-ever they wanted, and almost any artist they wanted. This did not last for long as the company realized that they need to make profit and they started charging money for using Spotify. Now if you don’t pay, you can use Spotify only for 10 hours a month and listen to one song no more than five times, which is not that much, but then neither is the price for Spotify Premium.

Streaming is now also available for TV pro-grams. You no longer have to pay extra to add special channels on your TV to watch your favourite football or ice-hockey team fighting for championship, because you can watch the match online with smaller price, certainly cheaper than buying tickets to the actual game. If you want to watch Desper-ate Housewives or a great movie, you can just log on to Netflix and grab your popcorn.However there are also problems with these

streaming services. Netflix made 376 million dollars profit last year, but how much of that was given to the actors and producers? Lady Gaga’s hit song Poker Face was streamed on Spotify a million times yet Gaga herself made only 224 euros and had to share this money with the record company and the mak-ers of the song. Does not sound fair to me.

Why do we then still have internet piracy when it’s cheap to buy a license for services such as Spotify and Netflix? I think the reason

is the same a with shoplifting. Free is cheaper than cheap, and that’s why we have services such as Groove Shark and Piratebay. Free Music and/

or movies with the risk of getting a huge fine, but the again you might take a bigger risk every time you walk out of your front door.

In my opinion fighting against internet piracy is like smashing your head against the wall, you can make progress, but maybe you could have something better to do. The efforts to make it impossible to use Piratebay in Fin-land have been pointless and unsuccessful. Sure if you try to get onto www.piratebay.org in Finland your browser will not let you in, but there are alternatives such as www.piraatilah-ti.org, for example. So CULT, you have hard task ahead of you, but I know you will make it!

7

Stem cell research: moral/immoral?

Michela Dell’Acqua

Stem cell research has huge potential. In the fu-ture they may be able to generate differentiated cells to treat certain diseases such as Parkin-son’s disease, diabetes, traumatic spinal cord injuries and Duchene’s muscular dystrophy.However it is necessary to take into ac-count some ethical issues this type of research raises, such as the duty to re-spect the value of each human life.

Embryonic stem cell research poses a moral dilemma and forces us to choose between the duty to prevent or alleviate suffering and the duty to respect the value of a human life. On one hand some people see the embryo as a person or a potential person according to their religious beliefs. In their opinion an embryo should be protected from conception onwards, because even if it does not have human charac-teristics, it will develop to be a person. For this reason it deserves respect and dignity as eve-ry other human being. Some in turn support the idea that an embryo not implanted into the uterus does not have the basic characteristics we associate with a human. Therefore they jus-tify its use in research to help patients (who are people) suffering from an incurable illness.

Nevertheless this is not the only possible type of stem cell research. In fact it would be possible to use adult stem cells instead of embryonic ones. Adult stem cells are un-differentiated cells, found among differen-tiated cells in the same tissues. Their pri-mary roles in an organism are repairing and

maintaining the functionality of the tissue. The biggest problem is that research done on adult stem cells did not provide comprehen-sive answers about these cells and their use. Moreover there are some important differ-ences between adult stem cells and embryonic ones. Embryonic stem cells can become all cell types of the body because they are pluripotent. Adult stem cells are thought to be limited to dif-ferentiating into the cell types of their tissue of origin. Embryonic stem cells can also be grown relatively easily in culture, another advantage.

Nonetheless, even if research on adult stem cells will continue, common legislation regard-ing the use of embryonic stem cells is needed. In Europe there are currently four different approaches, depending on the importance of religion in each Member State. We cannot force someone to take a certain position in-stead of another one. This is because ethic and moral ideas are in part common and shared by us all, but also a product of our personal background mixed with our religious beliefs or lack thereof. For this reason an agree-ment is nearly impossible, and a compromise would be the best solution. Legislation that permits responsible and moderate use of embryonic stem cells and, at the same time, guarantees respect for religious beliefs, and moral and social opinion is the best solution. Moreover it should ensure the research on adult stem cells and their use progresses so that if the results are good, it will be possible to use them instead of embryonic stem cells.

8

Guns don’t kill people, people do?

Erik Lintunen

Any law designed to restrict or limit the posses-sion, production, importation, shipment, sale, and/or use of firearms is considered to be gun control. Compared to the USA, EU mem-ber states tend to have stricter laws regarding guns. Still once-in-a-while we come across very unfortunate incidents such as school shoot-ings, public gun violence, and events resem-bling the 2011 Norway attacks where a total of 77 innocent lives were lost that could even be named as massacres. Even with tighter reg-ulation of gun laws, illegal firearms are some-what easy to get possession of, and therefore the focus should be on getting rid of the black markets. But how to stop the illegal trade of f i r e a r m s , when there is no possibility to monitor it?

The intense debate of lim-ited gun pos-session con-sists mainly of a few valid arguments , with the pro-ponents ar-guing the dangers of widespread gun ownership, and opponents arguing for right to self-protection. Even if individual liber-ties are taken to account, the fact is that guns are highly lethal, which can’t be forgotten. But as in the EU, self-protection using firearms

is already a crime and as there should be no encouragement for using violence in any situ-ation, the main counterargument for tighter gun laws concerns the rights of hunters and hobbyists. Since there is no possible way to satisfy both sides completely, the resolution must compromise between the two sides.

One way in which a pleasing compromise could be reached, is a way to ensure that hunters and hobbyists get to do what they love to do, but in order to purchase the weapons they’d not only have to get a licence for the weapon(s), but they’d also have to go through a series of psy-chological tests ensuring that they are healthy

to own a gun. Of course there is no way to en-sure that a gun wouldn’t end up in the hands of a seriously d i s t u r b e d person with a distorted percept ion of the world having a motive to hurt. How-

ever the most efficient approach would be to limit the laws to an absolute maximum without crossing the line of ignoring indi-vidual rights. The line is pale, but with ef-fort this controversial issue can be tackled.

9

Response to Radicalism

Olivier Rostang

The European Union (EU) has a key role in tack-ling growing radicalism in Europe. The attack in Utøya in Norway, the killings in Toulouse in France – a few recent examples of the reality all European citizens have to deal with today.

It’s not an easy task for the EU to deal with these problems but it is a crucial one. An EU-wide Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) has been established by the EU Internal Secu-rity Strategy in Action (ISS in Action). This net-work promotes action that enables communi-ties and other key groups to work to prevent terrorist radicalisation and recruitment.

The problems with terrorism and radicalisa-tion tend to be international, but the solu-tions are often local. Thus, social workers, religious leaders, youth leaders and other grassroots efforts in different communities need to exchange ideas and practices. This is a challenge on a local and national level, and requires cooperation at a European level. No one can fight this battle isolated from others.

In order to better understand the process of radicalisation, ideologies and recruitment mechanisms, the Commission supports re-search. It has also provided a platform for dis-cussing the phenomenon of radicalisation – the

European Network of Experts on Radicalisation (ENER). This network is able to assist EU and national level policy-makers in gathering exper-tise and exchanging good practices in the field of prevention. It is possible to relate this rising of right-wing tendencies to the economic crisis and increasing unemployment. People often have a tendency to blame, unfairly, immigrants for taking their jobs, which makes it easier for right-wing parties to gather activists and mem-bers, who are easy targets during periods of crisis. Therefore, the EU should, in my opinion, massively encourage and assist organisations and groups that work against racism and seg-regation. Young people need to be involved in these issues, it concerns us directly since we are a part of the Union’s future.

To me, organisations such as the European Youth Parliament (EYP) are a perfect exam-ple of an organisation that works in this direc-tion. Creating friendly relations between young people in various countries make differences a richness instead of a source of hatred. Soli-darity and tolerance among young Europeans are some of the keys to shape the future of the Union. We need to communicate across the borders and exchange our points of view on is-sues that concerns us all – citizens of Europe.

10

Hello, diligent delegates, curious chairs and optimistic organisers! A special saluta-tion goes to the delegates of EMPL, whose topic I will be discussing in this article, and hopefully pointing out some useful issues to think about concerning art and its relation to the current social structure in Europe.

Speaking of art, the beginning of this es-say supposedly is art, due to my use of al-literation (e.g. diligent delegates), but can literary device such as that actually help us reconcile different cultural groups? Frankly, I think not. Which brings us to every soph-ist’s favourite part in a text: redefining!

Art can portray a certain cultural group’s point of view or address the hopes common to all hu-manity. Sometimes this could even be paintings that create the same emotion in each viewer. The thing that they all have in common is com-munication. Art, despite having the power to become extremely personal, ridiculously hard to decode, or just plain awkward, does work to convey the artist’s emotions. Sure, it might be tough to read one of Sartre’s novels, but the existential ennui that he portrays can be clearly felt. Guernica may have very strange fig-ures, but it is certain that you will feel the chaos when you examine it. In other words, art is one of the best media of communication we have.

This brings us to the problems with the EU and its current social structure. It is a multicultural union that now includes an even greater num-

ber of cultures than it originally did due to im-migration, and the rise of new cultures. Though you may keep order for some time by keeping these cultures strictly separated from each other, like the Ottomans did, looking at the cur-rent political mess that is the Balkans and the Middle East, it is clear that this is not a perma-nent solution. Basically, we need to unite these different people under whatever they have in common, but this is harder than it looks.

One of the problems is the greatest scapegoat of all times, prejudice. People may refuse to get along with other people because of misinforma-tion. We need to make sure that all sides know each other properly. Here, art can be the me-diator of truth. A book that portrays life from the eyes of an immigrant, for example, can give the reader an idea of an immigrant’s hard-ship. The second problem is the fact that we focus too much on our differences. Instead we should remind each other that, as a Humanist writer once said, nothing that is human is alien to us. This is the part where art’s ability to cre-ate the same emotions in us comes into play.

That’s all good, but here comes the major problem: We are not the artists in this picture. As EMPL, you symbolise the EU, i.e., politicians, and the creation of said works of art is a pro-cess that is mostly unrelated to politics. Then again, some kings were patrons of arts, so to-day’s politicians can help the artists, or even shape art itself, with the power they control.

The Art of Reconciliation

Baris Can Kastas

11

A new economy to save Earth

Stefano Balzan

Since man appeared on our planet, thanks to his great intelligence, he has managed to cre-ate a friendlier surrounding through processes that change the environment in which we live in. Century by century technical skills and sci-entific knowledge have improved giving human-kind great power over the planet we live on.

To enhance living conditions and meet all our needs we are exploiting the resources the Earth provides us. Materials and energy (mainly in the form of fossil fuels) are extracted from soil and water, land is exploited in order to produce food and find place for infrastructure, houses and production plants. Waste is disposed of in so far as reusing or reprocessing them is not eco-nomically convenient or strictly necessary, such as heavy metals and other poisonous materials, resulting in environmental pollution. Most of our waste could be recycled and the rest be released into the environment after being processed in a more proper way. Something to solve this issue has already been done, but its still not enough.

Energy powers our society, it makes our com-puters and all the appliances in our houses work, it even allows me to write this article. It moves your cars and the plane you took to come here and also is necessary to produce goods. Since the beginning of the 20th century, elec-tricity, together with combustion engines, be-came the most easy and widespread power source and after the Second World War its demand began to increase exponentially. Now-adays it is used by billions of people, powering public transport, goods production, communi-cation etc. Electricity is so set in our lives that we could never imagine a world without it. Ex-perts say it would be like going back to 1850s.

The great problem concerning electricity is that it is produced almost entirely by burn-ing fossil fuels such as carbon (the most pollut-ing and oldest of the technologies), petrol and in the best case scenario gas or bio-gas. This has two important consequences: a) the emission of CO2 into the atmosphere, which is thought to cause climate changes and global warming b) the non-sustainability of electricity produc-tion due to the non-renewability of fossil fuels.

Our human activity is not sustainable anymore in terms of pollution and resources consump-tion. Now more than ever a new way of produc-ing energy is necessary to prevent a future cri-sis and save our environment, a way that does not rely on non-renewable sources and more is eco-compatible. Remember, dear delegates, that only a greener economy, not only based on profit but also on respect for the environment, aware of the limits of our planet and the mar-ket’s real needs, can prevent mankind from destroying such a beautiful place like Earth.

12

Sponsored by