My MEU ( Model European Union) experience.

I confess. Being Portuguese and thus suffering of a severe case of chronic pessimism I wasn’t really expecting to be selected to MEU. When the news arrived I calmed myself down and embraced the challenge of being a Minister of one of the most powerful countries in the World – the United Kingdom.On the day of my flight I guess I felt a bit like Vasco da Gama and although I wasn’t “giving new worlds to the World” I had one other quintessential thing to discover - Europe, the future of us all. I arrived bubbling with excitement and anxious to know the city, the participants and their ideas.After two days of informal presentations and debates, we were at last in the Parliament. Everything everyone had been anxious for. We, the members of the Council, were conducted to a small room where we were to listen to the presentation of the first proposal, regarding the CO2 emissions in the Union and to state our position, which I and I think no one else had really prepared. And the same happened with the discussions and especially the voting on the amendments. Personally, I flip-flopped a lot, and had no real idea of what position I should adopt. At the end of the day, we passed only one amendment, and not even an important one, on the original proposal. I guess we really gave a bad name to International Politics, due to our inexperience and lack of judgment.But, no harm done, we proceed to the next proposal, already knowing that the CO2 proposal would be looked down by the Parliament, and finally proved that the Council could work as one and be effective. It was time to discuss the European elections and what could be done to fight the continuous low voter’s turnout. I and all my colleagues felt ready and acknowledging the reasons of our failure on the first proposal, put our hands and brains to work in order to find reasonable, effective and most of all attainable amendments. We rejected most of the Parliaments amendments for that same reason, and took advantage of our place in the Council. More time to speak for ourselves and also to listen, and as each represented only one country a less disparity of interests meant more ability to achieve our goals. We stroked a handful of amendments, having reached unanimity in almost all of them. With our part played, we just had to wait for the members of the Parliament to cast their vote.

Finally, the news arrived. We had achieved what no one had been able to achieve before. The European Election proposal was accepted by both the Council and the Parliament. That day, we left the Parliament with the feeling you get when you do something really well done and everything goes according to plan. I think some call it pride.


Curiosos? Aqui fica um vídeo-resumo( a organizadora pequenina à esquerda é Portuguesa, chama-se Inês Nascimento, estudou Línguas e Relações Internacionais na FLUP e merece o meu agradecimento. Kudos! para ela) :