Day two of the Summer University was marked by workshops and discussions in EDS permanent working groups. Fresh ideas from the workshops got implemented in the working groups which prepared the documents for the Council meeting tomorrow.
The day kicked off with a business breakfast with Peter Jungen, President of the Small and Medium Entrepreneurs Union. Despite the early hour, Mr Jungen gave the audience serious food for thought by discussing the future of the Euro, and whether it can survive. His sharp analysis and out of the box ideas made immediately a strong impression to the audience. His sound arguments challenged the audience to consider, whether the crisis of the Euro is merely a symptom of a deeper political crisis looming below the visible surface, and called for dramatic restructuring of the European political sphere, as well as debt structure.
The representatives of the larger countries were directly challenged, when Mr Jungen suggested, that the consensus of the largest EU states was generally the worst option for the rest of the Europe, and instead, the smaller countries should aim to unbalance any such moves and work more deeply together in the EU. As his closing remark, Mr Jungen sharply reminded, that the very basis of the European Monetary Union was flawed to start with, when the base treaty set a certain acceptable and “normal” level of public debt, and remarked, that the EMU may have a stable future only, if the target level of public debt under normal economic circumstances is zero.
We had a great pleasure to attend to the workshop presented by Mr. Jan Erik Surotchak from International Republican Institute. The topic of discussion was the upcoming mid-term election in United States, which looks very promising for the Republicans according to the polls. After a rather bad election result in 2008, this is positive news, and it looks like Republicans might even take the majority in both Houses.
The atmosphere toward president Barrack Obama has changed radically. This has been seen in practise by multiple constituencies, which have traditionally been Democrat fortresses, turning to Republicans in the Senate. After the presentation we had an open debate on some of currently actual political developments in U.S. – the Health Care reform, the Gulf oil spill, the Climate change, the economic crisis and foreign policy.
The workshop with the topic „Engaging Political Islam: An Option for Europe’s Centre Right?“ was moderated by Roland Freudenstein, representing the Centre of European Studies. The participants received an interesting presentation about the history, current developments and future perspectives of political Islam.
Violent actions began and were legitimated in the early 1940s by the Muslim Brotherhood. Racial discrimination as well as women’s struggle for equal rights was one of the reasons for hatred against the Western world. A fruitful discussion led to the conclusions that relativism has to be avoided, we have to acknowledge immigration as a fact and recognise partners and moderate forces.
How can extremism be overcome? What is extremism on the right and on the left wing of the political spectrum? How do they differ, and in what ways are they alike? These and many others were the questions to be discussed during the workshop moderated by Dr. Florian Hartleb, professor of Political Management at the International University of Berlin.
After a short introduction and reading excerpts of two books on the theme, the group compared experiences with extremism in their respective countries. While it was easy for centre-right-minded students to oppose to leftist extremism, defining the borders between conservatism and the populist right wing proved more difficult.
However, it seems that right and left extremism have several features in common. Both are strongly dogmatic, often anti-establishment and always opposed to liberal democracy. Therefore, the recommendation to the centre-right became to focus on re-building democratic systems in the wake of the financial crisis, and to strengthen the vision of the European Union.Fourth workshop was chaired by Ms. Irena Pàlffyovà & Ms. Otilia Škarbova and dealt with the topic of tolerance in our everyday lives. After the short introduction participants were divided into pairs and were asked to learn something about their partner and their viewpoints on tolerance. They had to report on their findings to the rest of the group. The aim of the exercise was to create a toolbox of ideas to work with during the session. Participants were then given a problem which revolved around not being able to find a common voice in order to co-exist peacefully in a closed environment.
Finally, participants were put in a situation of being isolated from the group and asked about possible solutions of getting re-integrated. The workshop was concluded with an idea of necessity of having a more active approach in resolving intolerance issues with emphasis on communication and respect between people as prerequisites for a more tolerant society. Very interesting and interactive approach with the series of role playing games conjured up by the two professional psychologists who chaired the workshop boosted participants' awareness on the crucial importance of tolerance in our everyday lives.
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