Issue 1/March 31, 2015

Opening Ceremony: Security, freedom & Solidarity

Experts Speak About the Many Facets of Migration

By KALINA PESHEVA

By BENJAMIN RICHTER

The MEU Observer Blagoevgrad

The panel discussion by the Naumann Foundation offered insights into the professional work in migration policy agenda-setting and policy-shaping.

On the first day of the conference, three experts on the field of migration discussed the policy ap-proaches of the EU towards immigrants within the frame of a panel discussion. The event in the au-ditorium of Balkanski Academic Center (BAC) was moderated by Lukas Bieber, a former exchange student at AUBG, who is currently interning at the Project Office Southeast Europe of Friedrich Nau-mann Foundation for Freedom in Sofia.

The Naumann Foundation, project director Daniel Kaddik explained in his introductory re-

marks on Friday afternoon that the foundation “has been very active in promoting liberal values since it started working in Bulgaria in September of 1990.” He outlined that some interactive elements, such as a white sheet of paper on which the audi-tors were asked to write three criteria which they deemed worthy to be taken into consideration in future EU migration legislation, would distinguish this panel discussion from others of its kind. Fur-thermore, all listeners were provided with a red and green sheet of paper which they could raise to express their consent or refusal of a statement by one of the experts on stage.

The experts that participated in the discussion were Radostina Pavlova from the Center for Legal Aid – Voice in Bulgaria, an NGO from Sofia, as well

Kevin Aspegren, President of American Univer-sity in Bulgaria, and Andrey Novkov, Member of European Parliament, were among the guest speakers of the Opening Ceremony of

Model European Union (MEU) Blagoevgrad 2015. They all agreed on the need of a common European approach for dealing with migration. The European Society Club at AUBG was founded last year by a few enthusiastic senior students with Professor Cosmina Tanasoiu. “The idea was to do something interac-

tive and actually simu-late the decision-making process of the European Union”, said Petar Georgiev, President of European Society Club. The organizing team was presented in front of the delegates and enjoyed a well-de-served round of applause. Aspegren, defined the EU as “an interesting suc-cess project”. He explained it hasn’t been easy in the current times of crises, but he also addressed that these are times of great opportunities. He expressed concerns about the topic of migra-tion in its many aspects and especially in relation to human trafficking, a violation of fundamental human rights. “This is an issue which is extremely hard to address, deal with or solve”. “Promoting active participation of young people in the democratic life of Europe is one of the main objectives of the EU”, said Boyko Blago-ev, a representative of the European Parliament’s

Information Office in Bulgaria. Youth projects, such as Erasmus+ and Euroscola, are among the main or-

ganizations the EU Parliament focuses on. The budget for the next seven years will be more than 14 billion euros, an impressive amount that alludes to Europe’s investment

in developing an active civil society. He also said that it is a great achievement of MEU Blagoevgrad to have managed to secure the participation of three Members of European Parliament (MEPs). Andrey Novakov, one of the members, talked about how important it is for us to have active young people. He started his speech by saying: “We [the youth] are not the future – we are the present!” In relation to migration, the ex-pressed concerns about the significance of the “brain drain” phenomenon. “We have to look in depth to the root of the problem”, Novakov said and added that an equal system needs to be created in Bulgaria.

The question of security and freedom emerged as a “tricky” issue, which provoked intense debates among the

participants. Novakov declared that “compro-mise” is one of the main pillars of politics, which is why Europe needs to find the balance between security and freedom and such balance can only be achieved through debate. “In light of the re-cent terrorist attacks we have witnessed, balance should probably be moved a bit in favor of secu-rity, which goes hand in hand with control”, Nova-kov said. One of the interesting questions which arose from the speeches was the issue of the solidarity policy in the EU. “The whole idea of the EU was built around the concept of solidarity”, he stated. This was referring to successful examples of the cohesion policy, the right to free move-ment, the banking union and internal market, as evidence of “solidarity in action”. The European People’s Party (EPP) MEP concluded that Europe is currently on the right track and we should focus on working for the present, not just for the future of the EU. Finally, he firmly encouraged all the delegates to be active young people, to take risks and follow their dreams.

Andrey Novakov, MEP at the opening ceremony

Boyko Blagoev, rep. of the EP's Information Office in Bulgaria

Kevin Aspegren, President of AUBG speaking at the MEU opening cer-

emony

The panel discussion mediated by Lukas Bieber

as the freelance journalist Maria Cheresheva and Antoaneta Asenova, a political advisor for the vice president of the ALDE group in the European Par-liament, Filiz Hyusmenova, who took part in the debate via Skype. The panelists had five minutes for each answer.

Bieber’s first question concerned the influx of migrants into the EU and how it could be man-aged. Pavlova began by outlining the problems of the Dublin agreement, which states that the coun-try of first entry is responsible for the asylum claim of the respective refugees. “This rule”, she declared, “can lead to refugees being trapped in a European country, which is likely to be one of the door keep-er countries at the outer borders of the Union.”

Cheresheva explained that the term “illegal migrants” was not correct any more; many news agencies and most of the leading newspapers had switched to the term “irregular migrants” lately. “The expression ‘illegal migrant’ has a negative im-plication,” she said.

Answering Bieber’s question on how Bulgar-ian politicians could react to the fact that making change on the EU level requires consent on the national level in Bulgaria, Asenova pointed to the example of the Swedish citizens who perceive it to be their duty to help others in need. ”When deal-ing with refugees and irregular migrants”, she ex-plained, “we must always keep in mind that they had no other chance than to risk the journey to Europe.”

After the discussion, the topics were heatedly debated in the lobby of BAC. When asked to state his opinion about the brain drain that a migra-tion policy following the Canadian system could cause, MEU participant Nikolay Slavkov of the EPP said that no one should cross borders illegally. He shared his personal experience with two doctors from Syria who managed to legally migrate to the EU. “They have a good place in society, so they did not need to migrate illegally.” His fellow party member Sava Stoyanov, asked about his opinion

towards Frontex, explained that he supported the funding of the agency as long as its main task was patrolling and not rescuing. “If we put more efforts into saving illegal migrants, we create a pull factor and make the problem worse”, Stoyanov said.

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Workshop on Why Migration?

By SABINA PEYCHEVAI am Romanian by passport, Brit-ish by education and European in spirit.” This is how on Mar. 27, Prof. Cosmina Tanasoiu from the Depart-

ment of Politics and European Studies, opened her workshop on how the institutions of Euro-pean Union (EU) function and what current is-sues the member states face.

During the first part of her speech she made a brief overview of the work and the role of the different institutions of EU, concentrating mainly on the European Parliament (EP) and on the Council of European Union (CEU). After that she spent some time discussing the topics at this year’s simulation.

Why migration? As Prof. Tanasoiu explained during the workshop, the topic is rich in con-tent and lots of information is available.“ But the main reason it was selected by the organiz-ing team was because the European Commis-sion has recently announced its plan to bring changes to certain policies, one of which is the European immigration policy.

“I expect to hear engagement,” said Prof. Tanasoiu. “Most of them [the participants], in relation to the EU, I guess, are migrants in some way, so that they would have interest in how this legal framework might change […] And I am curious to see how they think it will change.”

Through many examples, including the mi-

gration crisis on the Island of Lampedusa in 2012 and in Spain in 2002, she stressed on the impor-tance of the chosen topic as well as of the frame-work itself. The European immigration policy framework is relatively new and its main goal is to ensure legal migration and integration for mi-grants. Its significant role comes from the inability of the EU member states to solve the migration is-sues within their borders, the national policies are not enough to protect them, Tanasoiu explained.

The topic of the simulation was accepted with enthusiasm by the participants at the Model Euro-pean Union (MEU) Blagoevgard, 2015. “It is current as a topic for the EU union […] They are currently discussing it and it will be interesting for us to dis-cuss it as well,” said Mariia Altergot, representative of the British Labor Party in the EP. “The topic is ex-cellent and is very appropriate for the current situ-ation in EU in general,” commented Evgeni Bizhev, representative of the UK Independence Party in the EP.

Heated Debates - Council of the European UnionBy SABINA PEYCHEVA

Undoubtedly, the most exhausting but productive day for the Council of the European Union (CEU) was on Saturday. A total of 26 Ministers

gathered to discuss the European Commission’s Proposal on the external dimension of EU immigra-tion policy and engaged in heated debates regard-ing its possible amendments.

“It was an intensive first day. The immigration policy is quite a sensitive issue both to the EU citi-zens and the national governments,” said Bojan Mladenovski, the President of CEU.

There were disagreements on a number of is-sues including the Blue Card policy, the EU-backed reception centers in Africa, and the necessary fi-nancial assistance.

Concerning the Blue Card Policy, the Ministers concentrated mainly on the rights of the Blue Card holders and of their families. Greatest attention was paid on the period after which holders of such work permits and their families will be allowed to move to another Member States for employment purposes. The Netherlands called for more flexibil-ity in this direction. In connection to this, France

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made a proposal to reduce this period from twelve to nine months.

The Ministers also disagreed on some issues connected to the introduction of reception centers in Africa. Most of the countries supported the idea. As expected, though, the UK opposed it. Lena Ste-phen, Minister of the U.K., explained that despite the obvious seriousness of the problem with im-migration, the country is “not willing to take part in the whole common system.” Steven London, Min-ister of Denmark, supported the U.K. and defined such centers as a “waste of resources.” The Member States that supported the idea, however, agreed

that the centers may have lots of advantages, in-cluding more space and lower costs as they will be situated in Africa.

The proposal of the EU Commission is such that the centers are planned to function only for two years. In order to ensure the improvement of the current problems connected to migration in the EU, France’s Minister, Antonio Banov, proposed ex-tension of this period.

The members of CEU also discussed the cre-ation of a solidarity fund to support fair reception quotas. The main problem for the EU countries is that some of them such as Malta and Bulgaria,

for example, do not have the financial resources to support their borders. In regard to this, during the debates, Italy proposed a new fund to be cre-ated, which may not require the participation of the countries not part of the Blue Card System, but which will ensure that all Member States receive financial help if necessary.

At the end of the day, the Ministers prepared the draft of the amendments, which was discussed on Sunday.

Debates: Blue Card System & EU-backed Reception Centers

Starting on Saturday morning, the dele-gates of the European Parliament were in-

tensely engaged in the topic of the conference: migration, and the direc-tive that had to be amended on the first day in the assembly. However, it was not in the assembly that the day started, but in the two issue-specific committees, for employment and so-cial affairs (EMPL) and LIBE for civil lib-erties, justice and home affairs.

The EMPL committee session was opened by the deputy of the party Podemos, Aliaksandra Shatsila, who stated that migration is neither a problem nor a threat. Sava Stoyanov, representing the Hungarian Fidesz party and stated that supporting migration of talented professionals would foster brain drain out of their

countries of origin and unemploy-ment in the receiving country, Shatsi-la replied saying young educated people emigrate from EU member states as well; therefore it would be necessary that migrated profession-als take their positions.

The committee entered into an in-formal debate soon afterwards, which enabled the delegates to coordinate their positions on the articles of the new directive that deal with changes

to the Blue Card system within their parties and coalitions. Several of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) representatives mentioned that they were opposed to the extension of the permitted pe-riod of unemployment from three to six months; especially in relation to the 18 months that a Blue Card hold-er has to spend in one member state before being allowed to move within the EU, this prolongation would ap-pear inappropriate.

Other topics which were also dis-cussed at the formal debate were the expansion of rights of Blue Card holders, their access to the national healthcare systems, and the lan-guage skills that should be required from applicants for Blue Cards. At the end of the committee session, the delegates elected Hristina Mihaylova of New Democracy for rapporteur to the Council in the Trialogue Meet-ing on Sunday; Gentian Gashi of the Democratic Party of Italy was chosen as shadow rapporteur.

On the other hand, formal debates in the LIBE Committee focused on the proposal for EU-backed recep-tion centers in Africa which led MEPs into a heated discussion. Reception centers are backed up financially by the EU Member States and their main purpose is to provide comprehen-sive information on asylum applica-tion. One of the main points made was that such centers already exist in some countries, so it’s a controver-sial issue if there should be more. The Committee agreed on the need for educational campaigns in reception centers, primarily foreign language courses. ALDE representatives even proposed that those should include additional training, such as law and history courses.

The S&D party was in favor of suc-cessful integration of immigrants, but at the same time against opening of new reception centers in Member States. They proposed an extension of the efficiency of the already exist-ing reception centers. The proposal

for restructuring and renovating of the centers was supported by Ger-many and the U.K. The U.K. represen-tatives also argued that there is no ur-gent need for the creation of new reception centers. “Instead, the qual-ity of the already existing reception centers should be improved in order to live up to Euro-pean standards”. In addition, the U.K. Independent Party (UKIP) representa-tives declared they are firmly against the idea for burden-sharing.

The Alliance of Socialists and Dem-ocrats advocated for successful and practical integration of immigrants in Europe. They believe that it will be easier to integrate those people by providing training for them, namely language tuition. They see this as an advantage because having people who know the language can contrib-ute to the general welfare.

Furthermore, motions for infor-mal debates were not a rarity among participants. Representatives of Euro-pean Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) agreed on conditions related to the proposed amendments: centers should provide language training as well as cultural and legal awareness of the respective country. If potential migrants receive a successful asylum status in an EU country, they would be able to claim social benefits only after 1 year of residence.

Meanwhile, French representa-tives from the European People’s Par-ty (EPP) shared their increasing con-cerns about a “flood of migrants” in an informal interview. They declared France wouldn’t like to take any more immigrants, because that would add to the overloading of their system. They also mentioned it would be

much more efficient if the migrants stayed in their country of origin. Com-menting on the setting up of recep-tion centers in Africa, they expressed disapproval, because these centers “are supposed to help migrants come to Europe” and this is something they are not in favor of.

In the following plenary session, the delegates discussed the articles of the proposal for a directive in detail, revealing their different positions and trying to bridge those gaps by com-promise through a debate. A topic that was much talked of was Frontex, the subject of Article 5: The audito-rium was divided between delegates being supportive of equipping the agency with a rescuing function and those who were against this, eager to see Frontex remaining a sheer border patrolling actor. Article 7 which deals with fair reception quotas was simi-larly intensely discussed; in the end, a majority loomed for the introduction of migration quotas among member states. The discussion moved to the proposal as a whole after a motion by the chairs; the delegates then had the chance to debate once again all the topics that had remained unclear or unsolved. Topics that received par-ticular attention here were reception centers in Africa and the question whether languages should be taught there, and if yes, which languages these could be and how they should be chosen.

By BENJAMIN RICHTER & KALINA PESHEVA

Delegates voting on one of the questions during the panel discussion

Prof. Cosmina Tanasoiu giving a crash course on EU institutions

EU Parliament committee sessions

EU Parliament at the first MEU conference held at AUBG

The Reception: Delegates, Organizers & Journalists Socialize

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More Than Fine-Tuning: Agreement Between InstitutionsBy BENJAMIN RICHTER

The third and last day of MEU Blago-evgrad 2015 was as productive as the two first ones had been, revealing the amended version of the proposal for

a directive which had excitedly been awaited by the delegates. Still, on this Sunday, there remained some way to go for the deputies in the European Parliament (EP) and the Council of the European Union (CEU).

In the Council, the representatives of the 28 EU member states first pre-sented the amendments to the directive propos-al that they had submit-ted to the amendment assistant the day before. The particular amend-ments included a regu-lation that the allowed an unemployment pe-riod for Blue Card hold-ers should be restricted from six months back to three months in case the unemployment rate would rise above ten percent. Furthermore,

some councilors were in favor of including Turkey on the list of countries where reception centers for refugees should be established. Following each ex-planation of an amendment, which was delivered by the councilor who had contributed the most to its creation, a procedural vote was held to deter-mine whether the amendment should be included into the eventual voting on the Council’s position. The vote itself was then conducted via roll-call vot-ing, resulting in the adoption of amendments 1.1, 1.3, 1.4, and 1.6 into the Council’s amended version of the proposal, with which the CEU entered into the trialogue discussion between commissioners, rapporteurs of the EP and four chosen CEU min-isters later on. The ministers were chosen by the chairs; their choice fell on the representatives from Italy, Germany, Bulgaria, and the Netherlands.

The final voting on the amended version of the proposal took place after the trialogue meeting, which ended with a slight delay, and was opened by the presentation of the amendments in the ver-sion that the parties in the meeting had agreed on. By this time, the tripartite deputies had come to an agreement about amendments to Article 1, prolonging the period of allowed unemployment for Blue Card holders with the exception of sectors with more than ten percent unemployment, as

well as to Article 3, encouraging the implementa-tion of the Blue Card Directive in national schemes of attracting personnel. Moreover, the geographi-cal distinction in Article 4 had been replaced by the criterion of the rate of migration outflow, in order to determine countries in which reception centers should be launched. Two amendments to Article 5 had passed the discussion, adding Romania and Bulgaria to the zone of responsibility of Frontex and codifying the need of Frontex operations to comply with EU values in a new paragraph.

After the quorum of 23 out of the present 45 members of parliament for an absolute majority of votes had been established, the final voting proce-dure took place, again in the roll-call method. All in all, 40 delegates expressed their consent with the amended version of the proposal; two depu-ties voted against it and three abstained. Conse-quently, the directive was adopted, as EP president Nikolay Nikolov stated, with an “overwhelming” majority. With this and a last long applause, the official part of MEU Blagoevgrad 2015 came to an end, leaving among the delegates an improved di-rective and the impression of having participated in a truly productive and certainly memorable ex-perience.

The representative of EU Par-liament presenting the final

decisions

Meet the Culprits By SABINA PEYCHEVA

He is Petar Georgiev - the driving wheel of MEU Blagoevgrad. Pe-tar is an AUBG junior

majoring in European Studies and minoring in Political Science. He is interested in EU law, European inte-gration, human rights and develop-ment policies. Apart from academics, he also plays American Football and basketball. His other hobbies include cycling, trekking, and reading history books.

She is Tijana Stojanovic - the iron lady behind this year’s simulation. Tijana is an AUBG student majoring in Political Science and Business Ad-ministration. After graduation this May, she plans to pursue a graduate degree in Public Policy.

Why MEU?Petar: Because I am really into EU af-fairs and I really wanted to show to AUBGers that the EU matters. The more you know about it, the more you can get involved in similar con-ferences and have an adequate opin-ion about EU topics. The importance of the EU grows stronger and stron-ger every year.Tijana: I had fun last year during the European Union Institutions Simula-tion, and thought I would like to join the club and help organize a similar event. So, I was interviewed, got the

position of vice president, and helped organize Model European Union as the Deputy-Head Organizer.

What was the most memorable part from the simulation for you as an organizer? And the most challeng-ing one?Petar: The 40 minutes of sleep I got after the first day and the 20 minutes of sleep I got after the second one. On a serious note, the most memorable part was showing Bulgarian tradition and Bulgarian lifestyle to the foreign participants. I am glad that they liked it. As for the challenges, there were many and I am really happy I had a responsible and serious organizing team. Despite being low in number this year, we made the conference possible.Tijana: The most challenging one was definitely the amount of running. I spent the whole conference on my feet, going up and down, here and there. I am feeling the repercussions now, and need a foot rub badly.The most memorable part? Perhaps seeing the first participants arrive for the sign in on Friday. It was both a moment of relief (“good, we man-aged to prepare everything and are ready to start rolling”), and of inten-sification, as this was the point after which we are not allowed to make any significant mistakes.

If you had to describe MEU Bla-goevgrad 2015 in one word, what would it be?Petar: Awesome!Tijana: Can I use a phrase? “A roller-coaster of emotion.”

What was the first thought that crossed your mind after the end of the Closing Ceremony?Petar: I forgot to say that.Tijana: And now, the clean up…

What was the first thing you did af-ter the simulation was over?Petar: I slept for 15 hours.Tijana: After the clean up, I was ex-tremely excited to go back to my room and put on some comfy paja-mas.

Is there something you wish you had done better?Petar: There’s not just one thing. There were many small organizational is-sues that we have noticed in the process and we will be working to fix those for next year’s edition.Tijana: Of course. We had numerous minor glitches; we were shifting the sched-

ule quite a bit. On the last day, the electricity on the

first floor gave up on us so we had to run around to heat up the water for the coffee breaks. Nonetheless, for a team of people organizing such a big conference for the first time ever, I am happy with how we did it. No ma-jor glitches and mistakes.

Just in one sentence, what is your message to all of the participants in MEU Blagoevgrad 2015?Petar: Stay active and knowledge-hungry, do what you like and I hope to see you somewhere, somehow, very soon.Tijana: I hope you enjoyed the con-ference, that you learned a lot about the functioning of the EU, and that we might see you again next year.

Petar Georgiev and Tijana Stojanovic at the closing ceremony

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Of Mehana Music, Foreign Languages & Farage-Specific Preparations

The dinner at the mehana, a tradition-al Bulgarian restaurant, was certainly one of the highlights of the MEU conference 2015 in Blagoevgrad.

Leaving the serious political business behind, the delegates enjoyed the casual atmosphere and spoke about the little details that contributed to making this weekend a memorable experience. “Who are you?” If your answer to this ques-tion is Nigel Farage, you have obviously prepared yourself well for your role in MEU. Nigel Farage alias Evgeni Bizhev revealed at the dinner, that his

preparation consisted, partially, of watching vid-eos of speeches, interviews and appearances of the U.K. Independent Party (UKIP) politician on the internet in order to familiarize himself with the be-havior and style of his role at MEU. Mohammed Abassor, who represents Ger-many in the Council of the European Union, stated that he liked the traditional music and dances in the restaurant. “Especially the music reminds me a lot of Arabic music”, Abassor added. Hristina Mihaylova of the Greek party New Democracy showed off some of her German skills

later in the evening. “Ich habe Deutsch sieben Jahre lang in der Schule gelernt”, she disclosed. “Aber ich habe nicht geübt, daher sind meine Sprachken-ntnisse etwas eingerostet.” This paragraph, by the way, is also a good way to test your own German skills: You find the translation of Mihaylova’s state-ment right under this contribution.

(Translation: I’ve learned German for seven years at school. But I haven’t practiced, that’s why my lan-guage skills are a bit rusty.)

By BENJAMIN RICHTER

CreditsMedia & Communications

CoordinatorMaria Markina

Editor-in-CheifHeidi Pullyard

Visual EditorAnna Bashuk

Copy Editor Heidi Pullyard

Reporters Benjamin RitcherKalina Pesheva

Sabina Peycheva

PhotojournalistsAnna Bashuk

Julia BraunMaria Markina

It’s been three really busy days here at the First MEU Conference at AUBG.We saw delegates in the

shoes of Ministers, MEPs and Jour-nalists and developing impressive communication, negotiation, team-work and problem-solving skills. On Sunday afternoon, the final day of the MEU, all the results on agreed amendments were presented and the Commission expressed satisfac-tion with the proficiency, expediency and enthusiasm of the delegates.

“Simulations, such as Model Euro-pean Union, have 3 main goals: Aca-demic purpose - to get practical ex-perience in addition to classes taught at university; Civic – to get an idea of how the EU functions in terms of the legal framework and procedures; and Social – to meet like-minded

people, make new acquaintances and exchange ideas,” explained Prof. Cosmina Tanasoiu at the Closing Cer-emony. Indeed, delegates found it very educational to see how every step of the whole decision-making process actually functions in reality. For students in Politics, Law and In-ternational relations it was very use-ful to see how theory can be put into practice. For students of other disci-plines it was a great chance to learn a lot, get an insight into EU politics and develop new skills.

For example, Lena Stephan played one of the challenging roles at the conference, she was a Minister of the UK, it was challenging due to the UK traditionally being a Eurosceptic country. “Since the UK is an opt-out country when it comes to migration policies, it was quite hard for me, as I

completely disagree with everything they stand up for... it’s exactly the op-posite of what I believe in,” she said. Another interesting opinion was that of Mohammed Abassor, the Minister of Germany, who not only fell in love with the vibrant city of Blagoevrgad, but also learnt a lot. He summarized what he learned from his role: “There are two key words in the EU’s demo-cratic society – negotiation and com-promise – a consensus needs to be reached in order to make progress.”

Certificates of Participation were distributed by the organizers indi-vidually, to each delegate who took part in the conference. Moreover, the most distinguished participants received Honorable Awards for their elocution and for having shown ex-tremely good communication and negotiation skills. Such special awards

were given to Mohammed Abbasor, Minister of Germany and Jetmira Al-lushi, the MEP from the European Conservatives and Reformist (ECR). The “Best delegate” award for Coun-cil delegates was given to the Min-ister of Italy, Daniel Penev, who was unanimously selected. The respective award for the EP delegates was allo-cated to Sava Stoyanov, a member of the European People’s Party (EPP). All of the members of the Organizing team were also acknowledged with awards and rounds of applause for the huge amounts of hard work they put into making the event happen.

The MEU Blagoevgrad conference finished with the presentation of a funny video, courtesy of the Media Team, as well as with taking group photos of all participants.

By KALINA PESHEVA

They Came, Debated & Learned a Lot...

Debates on EU Approach to Migration

After a long day of discussions, drafting and finalizing of amendments, on Saturday eve-ning the delegates gathered in front of the press to announce their positions. The press

conference was attended by all the elected faction leaders of the political groups, the Council President Bojan Mlad-enovski, the European Parliament (EP) President Nikolay Nikolov, as well as the Commissioner Victoria Antonova.

The outcome of Saturday’s debates has been quite positive as we saw a nice flow of discussions in both com-mittees of the EP Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL) and Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (LIBE). “A variety of opinions were expressed reflecting the dif-ferent political ideologies, from radical left to extreme right”, declared the EP President. Most of the political groups agreed with the main points of the Commission’s proposal, with the exception of Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD), who were firmly against “shift-ing authority away from nation states”. The major ques-tions on the agenda of the Members of European Parlia-ment (MEPs) were improvement of the Blue Card service,

EU-backed reception centers providing education for migrants, burden-sharing as well as protection of human rights at all times.

“EU-backed camps should be set up only in areas of conflict and disaster”, the European People's Party (EPP) demanded, while the Socialists and Democrats proposed the centers should be established in selected Mem-ber States with the highest number of migration on the southern EU borders. Other differences between the par-ties’ positions include the idea of popularization of the Blue Card among the countries with fewer numbers of Blue Card holders (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) and The Greens). In contrast, the Conser-vatives and Reformists (ECR), who are against eliminating barriers to intra-EU mobility, demanded that the set of rights given to Blue Card holders should not be expand-ed, as they are, in effect, “non-permanent members”. In addition, the Council President talked about the impor-tance of “relaunching” Europe and the European spirit by working closely together.

By KALINA PESHEVA