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cover story:European IdentityInterview with Maria ManolescuGuide to Dreilützow

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Dear Reader,

You are at this precise moment holding in your hands the valuable and precious very first issue of the official magazine of this year’s National Selection Conference of EYP Germany. The pressteam of the session is proud to present you a newspaper created especially for you, im-mortalizing your one weekend experience that you´ll undergo within the EYP framework, under the motto ‘Getting closer or closing up?’. Just like countries in the EU, you yourself can decide on closing up or getting closer to other people you´ll get the chance to meet during this weekend... Keeping this in mind, our cover story deals with the personal identity of the participants of the session, the identity of the groups your part of and... the ‘European Identity’. Our aim is to of-fer you some food for thought and memories. Whether there is a common European identity or not, we´ll let you decide, but we´ll do our best to give you arguments on the various points of view and maybe get you thinking about what your own identity is...What makes you, you?

Beside our articles on our identity, partici-pants of the session, the pressroom also took a look at the current phenomenon of virtual iden-tity and the possibilities and risks that come with it.

Of course, no magazine would be whole without revealing some secrets of persons present here at the session, so take a look on what we found out on your chairs and organisers, or read what our session president, Maria Ma-nolescu, told our magazine in the exclusive inter-view she offered us.

Four days left. Make it worthwhile.

Anar Kučera, Editor

L a n d e s z e n t r a l efür p o l i t i s c h e B i l d u n g

Cover story: European Identity - page 4-5Interview with session president Maria Manolescu - page 6-7The Chairsteam - page 8-9Human identity - page 10Virtual identity - page 11Organisers - page 12-13Dreilützow - page 14Germany - page 15

content

Partners of the 21st National Selection Conference of EYP Germany

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It is very difficult to define Europe geo-graphically and even more historically or cul-turally. Therefore it is challenging to find the right definition for the term European Identity, which might be unfortunately viewed as a hol-low phrase nowadays. In fact, there probably is no simple explanation. Despite several different attitudes to-wards the concept of ‘European Identity’, the main idea should be to bring nations together not only politically, but economically and cultur-ally as well. Of course the citizens shouldn’t lose their sense of national culture, belonging and identity and the European Identity definitely should complement the national identity bring an added value. It is more than obvious that rather distinct national identities exist, that are given by the existing diversities, including his-torical developments in Europe. However, these national identities still share many common ele-ments that allow us to build upon and create a common European Identity. Most probably a new common Euro-pean Identity has to and can only be created in a coexistence with other national identities in Europe. There doesn’t necessary need to be a contradiction between European, national, regional and local identities, when one is not repressing the others. We all possess several identities, but we also shift our identities occa-sionally and develop new ones. The identity of the society is dynamic and forms its self all the

time, not only because of new inhabitants from all over the world coming to Europe

and Europeans moving all over the continent. This process is based mainly on integration and shared cultural heritage. In today’s world, we can find many people that have the feeling of belonging to more than one nation at the same time. The reason for this might be that they en-joy unique and different aspects of each culture. We are able to find many similarities between the European citizens that bring us together. And even nations that are not even part of the EU may have large portions of their population who identify themselves as Europeans as well as belonging to their own nationality. This symbolic scheme should provide the Europeans with a feeling of continuity and ensure their coexistence. It is very important that others also perceive and recognize individu-als as members of a specific entity. The Euro-pean Identity should have more than a symbolic meaning for the people. Positive attitude to-wards the issue is very important and welcomed because it is deeply important to support the idea of European integration. Once the famous philosopher Balibar said: “It is not a question of setting a collec-tive identity against individual identities”, and as long as we keep this in mind, there shall not be anything or very less that stands against the creation of a common European identity. In ac-cordance with the principle “unity in diversity”, the Union shall support the variety of cultures within it, while bringing us together with our common cultural heritage.

who are we? the european identityby Hana Láníková

cover story

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We here it everywhere, politicians talk about it all the time, we should feel it in our-selves, but if we actually ask ourselves what does European Identity mean, are we going to be able to give an answer to this question? It’s very hard to formulate what words ‘European Identity’ actually stand for, because for most of the European citizens they are only an idealistic concept without further concrete content. In the current discussions we can mostly approach this idea in two different ways. One is rather supportive and sympathetic to this concept and of course we have in opposition a rather more critical opinion. While the first opinion is favoured by politicians and part of the intellectuals, generally we can find more euro-scepticism among the ordinary citizens around the continent. The idea of European integration has been built on values that should somehow unify different countries with different cultures, histories and political systems, task that actu-ally appear to be a utopia to many people. Indeed many inhabitants don’t feel a concrete belonging to the EU because identification is not something that everybody can agree on or even have forced upon from above. Thus the sense of the national heritage is deeply planted in everybody’s individuality. Some people see it as something more material like a passport, other define it as a feeling of belonging to somewhere and something. We have to admit that nowa-days the national origin and traditions still have a much stronger impact on the youngest gen-eration who is supposed to build European Iden-tity in the upcoming years. Also European Identity will never be as importing for the ordinary people as the culture and identity that is already established in their own different countries. Therefore we have to

admit that EU is trying to relay on a concept that isn’t actually being understood and ac-quired by the population in the different na-tions, who are composing what is suppose to be a union with a common identity. Furthermore, historical issues play a main role in the diverse identities. If we take the example of the USA, which has lived and known the same history all along the centuries, the same difficulties and achievements, we know that Europe doesn’t have this advantage. To succeed, we would have to ignore all the past events that have occurred in all the different countries in the previous years and that is sim-ply not possible. Same events are understood differently in each country and trying to find a common historical view would bring us even more apart and bring all the prejudices back. The creation of a European Identity would necessary have to be based on unifica-tion of our values and history, forcing people to acquire common traditions, beliefs and values. But this desire of politicians of creating a unique identity actually makes the inhabitants afraid and even more sceptical about the whole con-cept of European integration, thus conveying a feeling of “Europhobia” among citizens. The big-gest paradox is that those who actually feel the strongest about the matter and believe deeply in European Identity actually do the most to bring the whole project of integration to crash, by pushing people to go where they are not ready to. We talk about this at school, at work or with our families and friends because again we don’t agree on the same explanation that we can give to the idea of the European identity. However the debate should continue, because the discussion in a democratic society is the only way to bring us further.

‘European Identity’ – nice name for a hollow shell?

by Stella Benfatto

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Although, she had her life manager and public relations representative Feyriele (chair, ENVI) to stop her from answer-ing personal questions, Maria still trusted me to choose a fitting title. What can I say but to never trust a journalist. So, despite getting no scoop on whether the stunningly young-looking president is single or not do continue on reading.

You know Tweety from Looney Tunes, right? Well, meet your president: she may not be yellow (and her favourite colour is red), but she is as hard to capture as a fictional canary bird. Given the choice, she would like to be a bird, as well, but ’not a killing one, though’. So when I finally sit down with the presi-

BoardThree experienced EYP Alumni, the Session President and two Vice-Presidents, who will lead the chairs‘ team and moderate the debates during GA. At this year’s National Selection Conference in Schwerin, it consists of Maria Manolescu (Ro-mania), supported by Frenchman Alexandre Narayanin and Germany’s Christian Drews.

BrainstormingWhat you should definitely get to know best during an EYP session is your own brain. You will have to storm it over and over again. Your ideas are the most precious capital you have, making brainstorming a decisive thing.

Editor(s)Well... editor is more or less a nerd, usually spending most of the session in front of a computer. Designing the session magazine and chairing us, the Press-Team, Editors are truly working hard and having even less sleep than you do. So be nice to them, they deserve it.

GAabbr. for General Assembly. Taking place in a very formal way, the GA is the highlight of every session. It is the final chance to deliver passion-ate speeches presenting, defend-ing or scrutinizing the work of the foregone days.

ISabbr. for ‘International Session‘. With three of them taking place an-nually (spring, summer & autumn, they are the flagship event of EYP. Each of them brings together 270 people from all corners of Europe. During the 10 days of an IS, the del-egates, having been selected at the National Sessions all over Europe share their visions and express their

voices on important issues from europe and the world.

eyp - the basicsby Benjamin Eisert interview

“I’ll trust you with deciding on the title.“

by Karin-Liis Lahtmäe

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iDentitydent of 21st National Selection Conference of EYP Germany, I am taken aback by her overwhelming positivity. Being as ever busy and needed as she is, her smile never falters, as she apologises for every interruption made by everybody else wanting to know something from her, talk to her, or just sit by her during the inter-view. Still teenager or a bit older (a woman never reveals her true age) she started EYP in her sister’s footsteps. Although, the former stopped after 3 years, she continued on and is now president of her 6th session already, this time here in the lovely Schwerin. Maria thinks she stayed in EYP because it gave her a feeling of being competent. Back then Romanian National Com-mittee was still in its infancy and she had ’the selfish need’ to be part of the nurturing process. “My sister got the fun part, not the learning part“, Maria says about what keeps her coming back to the realm of EYP. “Every session and every person bring a new challenge, a new lesson that you wouldn’t encounter in day-to-day life“, she says. Moreover, Maria feels that she has something to share and that there is lot yet to learn for her, too. Talking about learning, always having something to im-

prove upon is what her mom and dad taught her. “They [Maria’s parents] taught me everything. Wait, that sounded too deep, right? I do not want to sound that deep“. Feyriele agrees with that. Maria is a bit wary about having interviews done with her. Although, she “appreciates the attention, time spared and effort put into making an interview” during the interviews, when she finally has the time, she is almost always too tired to think of any good answers. Maria says she knows that she “may come across as judging or arrogant, but that it comes from her willingness to understand the person and help him or her”. “I know I can be a bit too motherly. I acknowledge the fact that sometimes people do not want any [help], that I have to keep boundaries, but I care too much not to help“. She may think she is perceived differently to her true self, but I say that with Maria what you see is what you get. She is “energetic, runs and jumps around like Tinkerbell, always shares her good mood with others and cares about everyone and eve-rything”. Her humour is anything “from quality to cr*p” and her eyes light up when she talks about her previous obsession – rainbow-coloured socks with cute faces. She does not like getting “mushy-wushy”, but she loves people close to her (“and all that blah“). Maria may have a small posture, but she has a big heart and there always seems enough of Maria to go around: I get my interview, the vice presidents and chairs get their meeting, and the organisers get her approval.

“I wouldn’t want to be a biscuit, they have no soul nor a tree, for that matter, because they cannot move and live way too long. They are quiet. I would die, if I couldn’t talk!“

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Big Fat PonyThe number one mascot of every session, the president of Teambuild-ing – the animal godfather of EYP. The BFP is a common teambuilding game played in a huge circle with as many people as possible. Overcome your timidity, be the fattest pony you can be. You will enjoy it!

The Question BoxAnything about EYP or the session you don’t know but need to find out? Put your question into the Question Box. The box will always be somewhere around you. An-swers to the best questions will be published in the next issue. But the Question Box can do even more. Want to leave a comment? Or do you even want the Press Team to poke one of your new friends. Leave the name and committee of your friend and we’ll do the rest.

A DieterDieter, castle ghost and haunting this “castle”.“Dieter”, locally even used as an adjective or noun describing things you rather shouldn’t do because they are nasty and bad. E.g.: “Don’t do that! This is so dieter!” Or: “Damn, he dietered again!”

Behind EYPHaving been established in 1987 in Fontainebleau, France, EYP is present today in 35 European coun-tries. Being a programme of the Schwarzkopf Foundation, various charities, foundations as well as pri-vate companies and official institu-tions support EYP, e.g. Germany’s foreign ministry.Each National Committee works independently but they all share a common vision.

Press TeamTogether with the chairs and organ-isers, they constitute the official’s team. They work on the session magazines. The journalists accom-pany you through your EYP experi-ence and take loads of pictures. (See them after the session on Facebook)

the chairsteamiDentity

by Zuzana Holakovská and Hana Láníková

afco 2 - franzi and dimitris

afco 1 - maria and piaMaria is actually older than she looks like

and Pia loves doing wake-up calls.

AFCO 1 is gonna be amazing even though they have a challenging topic, they are a

presidential comittee!

libe 2 - bogi and franziBogi had two turtles that suddenly died a mysterious death and Franzi just can’t wear two different socks.

LIBE 2 got an extremely important topic and are going to go pet bunnies on breaks.

envi - fey and yannFey was not able to speak any English three

years ago and Yann is very fragile (better not touch him)

ENVI is the best because chairs want them to be and it’s alraedy in the name:

ENVICTUS!8

Dimitris wanted to be a captain of a ship but then he realised that gets dizzy on a boat, Franzis pictures keep falling down every-where.

AFCO 2 has the best chair pair and an awe-some room with sofas!

Fred can touch her nose with her tongue and Alex has had a bad relationship with

flipcharts.LIBE 1? They will rock!

They have the best chair-jurno combination.

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inta - christian and giadaEach of Giada’s eyes has a different colour and Christian can’t stop thinking about food.

INTA is gonna be amazing, they have the largest room to shine and are allowed to make fun of politicians all the time.

libe 1 - alex and fred

deve - wiebke and ugisUgis just loves to eat cucumber with sugar and Wiebkes favourite animal is pig.

DEVE will always take a larger step ahead than anybody could expect and thus leave all the others behind.

femm - lorenz

imco - christian

Lorenz always gets injured at sessions but two pianos in their committee room makes FEMM the coolest committee around.

Christian came all the way from Scotland from the session and IMCO clearly got the most inter-esting topic.

We are not going to pretend that you haven’t reflected on this question before. Nonetheless, we’d like to present some concepts of identity that notable philosophers have introduced. Yes, they are incredibly dry, but hopefully, one of these ideas will remain at the back of your mind once you discuss the European identity. Should the following adumbration however inspire you to write a dissertation on this topic, you would leave me stunned forever.

The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Diction-ary just says that an identity is the entity of “characteristics, feelings or beliefs that distin-guish people from others”, which poses a some-what general definition. To what extent is the human physique an aspect of one’s identity? Does an embryo, technically a bunch of cells, have an identity? What role do memories play in the way I perceive myself? To begin with, most theories deal with how a person’s identity is molded while interact-ing with the environment, basically family and society. They all have the common principle that a human being must interrelate with the outside world to develop these “characteristics, feelings or beliefs that distinguish people from others”. And this would not work without something

that one can define as “not me”. (IM-PORTANT REVELATION!)

Lithuanian philosopher Emmanuel Levi-nas (1906-1995) considered every individual a subject that could freely and actively decide how to react to extrinsic factors. Example: I get slapped and can choose to fight back, to start yelling, to call for support or not to do anything in return. Each option will inevitably shape my identity. Then there is Crawford B. Macpherson’s (1911-1987) and Alistair Macintyre’s (*1929) model: According to them, every person’s iden-tity exists separately from the outside world. Although a personality can indeed solely accrue through expectations or forces of one’s social environment (along with education, culture, religion, etc.), an independent core remains. Again, this core is the actual identity according to Macpherson and Macintyre. Example: I get slapped and can choose to fight back, to start yelling, to call for support or not to do anything in return. Each option may affect my self-aware-ness, but the actual identity stays unaltered. In the end, the most precise undisputed definition that philosophy offers, is the percep-tion of a continuous personal entity both in it-self and at all times (if you excuse my imperfect translation). So the next time someone asks you who you are, that would be an infinitely geeky alternative to saying your name!

who am i?by Quynh-Anh Nguyen-Xuan

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Virtual identity: Benjamin takes a tour in the book of faces

Are you happy with yourself? Do you love yourself the way you are? Or is there something, some specific fact about your physical appear-ance or characteristic you don’t like to think of that often or were always not happy with. Did you ever feel awkward about what defines you, what makes you unique, what constitutes your identity? Well, with facebook & co. you can be whoever you want to be (or at least try). You can create the perfect image of yourself and present it to the world! Through social networking and with some creativity you have the possibility to compensate for everything you think you have not enough, or too much of, or not at all. Show off, “like” some fashion designer or any sophisti-cated and most importantly ridiculously expen-sive brand, and there you go, “richer” than ever before. The opposite might work as well. With basic skills in photography or pho-toshop, in serious cases both at best, you can even make yourself look nicer, thus more “in-teresting”. Another feature: change. “Liked” something not-so-cool anymore? “Unlike” and embrace the latest and hippest product, brand, group or whatsoever… (& hope no one noticed). But does it work? Is it worth the effort? As long as you never actually meet with your ‘friends’, it does work perfectly. But as soon as you do, you will have to face the inconvenient truth. With or without putting your face in the book of faces, we are who we are. Facebook doesn’t change anything. Popularity is another interesting phe-nomenon. Impress with cool friends from all over the globe. ‘The more friends the better’ appears to be the motto. A guy with amaz-ing friends map has to be a cool guy, doesn’t he?! And no, this is not my friend’s map, and I don’t wish it was! Hold on… or wouldn’t that be rather a cool thing? Your virtual appearance is your poster

child, your virtual ID-card, visible to everyone. Hence it seems logical to monitor and try to control what information about oneself is being published online. Websites such as ‘www.yasni.de’ are specialized on online search for indi-viduals, even offering an e-mail alert one can subscribe to, sending a short notice whenever something new involving you appeared on the web. Your profile is what you present to the public, and since we’re given the possibility to share everything from family and other relations to one`s favorite toothpaste flavor, the question of what to disclose and what better not to tell arises. You have to know for yourself to what extent you dive in. But being generally rather skeptical towards making more things public or visible to my “friends” than necessary, I give my best by fine-tuning my privacy preferences. And still, with facebook wanting to get out of us as much as possible, the result is not that satisfac-tory. Facebook annoys me. But yes, it is fun and very useful. Still, I just can’t smile. Being a regular user of social network-ing, you are constantly exposed to the danger of exposing too much. A lot of people I know share things they would most probably never tell or show me face-to-face. But on facebook, they do. In the vicious circle of everyone having more and more friends and appearing more and more interesting one is inclined to give up astonish-ingly large amounts of one’s private sphere. Without anybody having to force us and doing everything voluntarily. But why do we do such things? Where is the sense in appearing cool and well-liked to people who don’t really know you and you don’t know either? Apparently some people feel or sleep better having hundreds of facebook ‘friends’. Feel free to add me on facebook, I haven’t broken through the 1000 barrier yet… Admittedly, I sometimes kind of want to feel what it’s like.

This is me 2.0by Benjamin Eisert

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organisers

Alexandra always w

ears tw

o different socks

Philipp has n

ever been a delegate

Ulli got in

jured at last

3 sessi

ons

Jonathan went fo

r lunch

with

Dutch queen

Julius g

ot blue to

ilet p

aper from his s

ister

Riaan was born in South Africa

Jupp wanted to be a firefighter

Nora doesn’t own a pan

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Anna wants

to learn a handsta

nd

Julius a

lways w

anted to be a Je

di knight

There is a perso

n named after Enno

Max knows how to

cat w

alk with

high heels

Bettina speaks 4

languages

Max is scared of trampolines

Lulu brought worm from India

Kerstin has a identical twin sister

Nora doesn’t own a pan

Yannick alw

ays forgets

to book his tickets

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Anna wants

to be a vet

Cora broke her finger w

hile hitti

ng her brother

Nadja is half-C

zech, w

hat makes h

er aweso

me

Laura is

afraid of la

dybugs

Anna wants

to learn a handsta

nd

The press team has been exploring the real identity of our “brick host”! Indeed since the arrival of the different officials and delegates, people had different reactions towards what they found and could admire around the place-ment. Did we find a definition to describe in one word what’s behind the bushes and doors of our hosting house? Let’s say that at least we tried!

Before the beginning of the Nation Selec-tion Conference, a group of innocent foreign-ers was tricked into believing that we would be accommodated in Schwerin’s castle. They all probably have been enchanted from the beau-tiful picture that was uploaded on the session website. But we actually have been brought to an unidentifiable place in Dreilützow (which is already unpronounceable for foreigners in itself). EYP is used to different places! However this time we have been invited into the middle of German fields and trees. At first sight it ap-peared to be a quiet and simple location, due to the impressive main building. For some people, it was even able to substitute castle of Schwerin. Yet if you walk around a bit, you’ll realize that you can’t define this place as ordinary. Here are some exclusive tips, from your press team, to discover the different faces of the site:

1. Go around a bit, behind the main building you will notice some

small cages with bunnies and one guinea pig, waiting to grow up and run on the oversized hamster wheel. (We have proof they will grow up to human’s size – be careful!) 2. To leave the sheep and their babies alone, just don’t walk in the direction of the green lake. (Don’t worry if you are getting too close, you’ll smell their magnificent scent). 3. Sneak around, and behind some trees you’ll get the change to find a real useful yellow telephone booth, which is supposed to make international calls. (However if you managed to do so, you’ll be the most incredible person since there isn’t any telephone inside!) 4. In the direction of the rabbits, try to spot an indefinable white “thing” (it’s the only way to call it) which is hanging from a tree and if you understand what it is, let us know! 5. If you want to pray, you can leave your committee and find some peace in the chapel on the left side of the park. Many other fascinating details demarcate this place, making it unique amongst other EYP settlements. Some of the people have said that it looks like a farm, that it has a royal touch, but some other just can’t give an explanation to all the weird things around the place, in particular the misty chair’s room, which has already mes-merized all the people entering it, by making them all fall on their backs and staring at the ceiling. Thus we hope you’ll enjoy trying to give an appropriate noun to our Dreilützow site!

dreilützow: a castle? a farm? or just a mystery

by Stella Benfatto and Quynh-Anh Nguyen-Xuan

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As this session is German National Selection Conference, it might be interesting to know how Germans and foreigners see Germany. There is certainly not a lack of general informa-tion on the Internet; however is that what re-ally attracts the most? Continue on reading and learn some interesting facts about Germany.

Starting from the basis, let’s go over the generally known facts. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Western Europe with a population of over 81 million, of which 3.4 million are living in the cap-ital city Berlin. The political system is a federal parliamentary republic and the current head of the government, called the chancellor, is Angela Merkel. Now just think for a moment and ask yourselves - have you ever really thought about Germany in particular? In case you haven’t, we interviewed few EYPers and found out their opinions. The four German citizens we ques-tioned agreed after all, that their home country is famous for car factories (Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes), Oktoberfest and Bratwurst. Cora, one of the organizers, remarked that Germany being famous for beer is a stereotype, because the only region where beer is actually really famous is Bavaria and foreigners tend to reduce Germany only to this southern region. On the

other hand Germans wish their country was known as a mediator of Europe which every-one can trust and its citizens famous for their humorous, kind and cheerful personality. Most of young Germans, despite their pride of their cultural heritage such as the rational way of thinking, would not mind moving abroad to get to know other cultures. You may be asking now – But what do the others, the foreigners, think about Germany? What are the stereotypes? The majority of Eu-ropeans associate Germany with football, Okto-berfest and Berlin. Apparently there are many personal characteristics typical for the Germans such as punctuality, tidiness and loudness as well. Fortunately Angela Merkel´s position in Europe has had such a great impact on foreign-ers´ views and opinions that when talking about politics they did not mention the embarrassing resignation of the minister of defense Gutten-berg who was nicknamed Baron Cut-and-Paste, Zu Copyberg and Zu Googleberg by the journal-ists. Personally I believe there is no doubt about the enormous amount of effort the Ger-mans have put into the reconstruction of their image and economy after certain dark moments in their history. The extent of their success is un-believable, therefore Germany surely deserves respect and admiration.

the true face of germany

by Zuzana Holakovská

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