You've been punk'd

James again

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the delegates who I had an opportunity to talk with on Thursday night. It was an absolute pleasure to talk to nice, interesting people. But unfortunately my habit of being somewhat liberal with the truth reared its ugly head and for that I apologise profusely. So to clear some things up for anyone who may have believed otherwise, I am not 27 and am actually a mere 19, I have not been doing EYP since 1998 and have never been an international session president. I did not first retire from EYP in 2005 and this is not a ‘comeback’. But most importantly of all I am not a member of UK government. So to anyone who I am may have deceived all I can say is, ‘you’ve been punk’d.’

Watch out Little Mermaid!

Dear all,
Can you remember the first day of GA? (of course you can!)
Everyone was sitting in this amazing room in the European Parliament, all dressed up and so exited and nervous that you were almost shaking. No one knew what to expect and how things would turn out. But luckily the ice was broken by NUDE, our dear Committee on Nuclear Destruction. Since almost everyone voted in favour of there resolution, we think you would like to reread it, so you can start preparing your fight against the mermaids!


Motion for a resolution by: NUDE – Committee on Nuclear Destruction
The European Parliament, 05-03-2009

Submitted by: The Organisers team

“In the face of global warming, the earth will be covered by water!
What should be done for the human race to survive?”

The European parliament,

A. Keeping in mind that global warming has been proven.
B. Being aware of the great success of Little Mermaid and Nemo in living in Open Ocean.
C. Considering the past conflicts between mermaids and humans

1. Recommends the wiping out of the mermaid race through chemical warfare.
2. Recommends dying the see into rainbow colours to make living there more pleasant
3. Urges on compulsory lessons in scuba diving.
4. Asks for the distribution of pitch forks to arm the people against sharks, mermaids and squids.


Get this battle started!

Food or Fuel?

The lovely delegates of ENVI ll had the glorious challenge of sorting out which view the EU should have upon bio fuel. Brasilian farmers growing sugar to produce bio fuel instead of producing food, is that really what a good long term solution is all about? Are we able to use only ecological friendly energy fuels and get rid of nuclear power?

Question after question were presented in this, the session’s most active, debate. The proposing committee had to work hard to defend itself for the more negative points. But they rose to the challenge and managed to keep delivering fast and accurate answers.

In the sum-up speech the beautiful girl from the proposing committee stated that they would rather give long term but weaker solutions than lying and promising fast and short term solutions.

With that it should be clear to all that green definitely is the new black.

Hottie or Nottie?

So… How hot can it get in the European Parliament? Is there a limit to the general hotness at the Belgian Nationals? Michelle and James took to their feet and made an anonyms survey among the delegates, the question on all lips were as follows: “Who is the hottest official?” Soon it was clear to the two fearless journalists that equality was not a goal with these delegates, but already good established. Out of the 33 delegates that were questioned (17 girls and 16 boys) the result showed that this session could offer some hot officials of the male sex and also some Swedish sugar.

More pictures!

Dear all,
for those who are still enjoying the afterglow of the last 3 days and who would like some more visual material to cheer up their stories: visit the Facebook group of The 15th Belgian National Selection Conference! We posted a selection of pictures that did not make the journal.
Enjoy!

http://www.facebook.com/reqs.php#/group.php?gid=50946814280

...!

Some of you may not be aware of the fact that we spent Friday working in the same building as Hillary Clinton!

A little update

Dear delegates,
I hope you all got back home safely! You probably unpacked your suitcases, told your parents or siblings about your wonderful experiences in Brussels and sank into your comfortable sofa for a nice and quite evening in front of the TV. I can not blame you for that, because you all worked very hard and deserve some rest. But I’m happy to see that some of you still had a little bit of energy left to check out our blog. Welcome to you all!
At the moment the press team can only dream of sinking into their sofas. As you can see, we are currently finishing the last articles. Enjoy reading them and feel free to comment!

Radio Insjallah aka Channel 12

I had the pleasure to have an interview with the main presenter of Radio Insjallah/channel 12 Mister Philippe Heeren!

So how’s it like to Broadcast a radio in the European Parliament? How do you feel about it?

It’s really cool to do illegal stuff in the EP! You should keep in mind that Radio Insjallah was founded on the same day that Hillary Clinton was in the EP with all her American security guards. Isn't that exciting?

Tell me everything about your radio station! How did you came up with the idea? What is the concept?
Our Hitlist contains 2 songs: Insjallah Insjallah and Pump up the jam. But we have lots of technical problems because during the broadcast hours, jurymembers can enter our studio and as we are illegal it’s difficult to expand our radio station to other EP meetingrooms. We’re actually an interactive radio, almost between TV and radio, so we asked delegates to listen and we try to have more control on them than the board has. We did an Insjallah wave and it became a hit on You tube. We don’t know if the board already discovered our channel so we’re still try to hide. We’ll have a special guest called, Bilal al Jasus and he’s going to make a cover of our greatest hits so keep listening!

Latest news on Channel 12:

We called a delegate, Marthe during our afternoonprogramme and had a voting about the best kebabsauce ever and guess what? Garlic sauce had the most votes in favour! We also introduced a new song on the channel, 'No stress' ! Very appropriate song for a Parliament channel, so don't forgot to pump up the volume when channel 12 is broadcasting!

The Gossip Machine

We’re very proud to introduce Celine and Janne (ENVI 1), aka as The Gossip Machine to you all. They were are loyal gossip box posters and wrote us more than 20 ‘Did you know’ papers! Thanks girls you did a great job! We’ll publish the most interesting parts:

Part 2: Did you know that Jonathan from the Pleinschool has got an eye on Veronica!!!??? She could be his perfect first big love… ;)
Part 3: Did you know that Lukas Debaillie has a very erotical way of eating icecream?
Part 5: Did you know that Karsten from Diest really likes to be in the spotlights and especially likes to pose in front of Janne’s camera!
Part 6: Did you know that Veronica is most likely to go out with brown-haired guys? Oh no! That’s such a pity for Jonathan!
Part 8: Did you know that Matthias and Hessam are both world of warcraft freaks? They like talking about levels and stuff.. Sooo interesting!Part 9: Did you know Koen has got 3 nipples? (We don’t know where the third is though)
Part 12 Did you know that Hans is a walking hormone machine? (that’s what Alexander says)
Part14: Did you know there’s a general statement that Swedish girls are HOT ?!
Part17 : Did you know that Hans spooned with Philippe last night? Yummie!
Part 16 :Did you know that Pablo likes brown-haired Belgian officials?! (He can also say ‘coconut’ without showing his teeth btw!)
Part 20: You should have enough information with those keywords:
Simon, Threesome, Céline, Spooning and Pablo
(Really don’t know what you’re talking about girls!)

Late

Shocking, but the European Parliament does not provide us with internet in the assembly hall so the blog posts will appear with minor delays... ;D

You know what really grinds my gears

Hi James here

Basically I will be using this blog to complain about anything and everything. The first thing that has been getting on my nerves is awareness campaigns. Not that they're necessarily the worst idea I've ever heard at EYP, (that particular honour goes to the girl who stood up at a nuclear disarmament debate and said in a completely serious manner we need to keep nuclear weapons in case of alien invasion) but what exactly are they going to achieve. After 60 years and vast expansion across Europe does the EU really need a PR campaign? Are anti-Europeans going to read a leaflet saying 'What the EU can do for you' and think, 'Actually this EU thing is not too bad'. But there we go, stress over.

Next time: why is it that every piece of technology I own is broken?

Gossip Box

Let's introduce our gossip box! Did you hear anything or did you see anything? Do you have interesting quotes? Or is there something you really want to say?

Let us know!

Or do you have emotional problems, need advice or want to tell us how you're feeling?

The press team is here to help, so feel free to post it in the gossip box!

An Organiser's Nightmare

Day 1 of the conference - former session president Ville Vasaramaki cancels his participation due to severe food poisoning. So jury member Ruben Wagenaar from the Netherlands is convinced to take over the position and has so far done a very good job with officials' and general teambuilding.

Introduction

From tomorrow (March 3) onwards this page will be regularly updated with news from the 2009 Belgian National Session of the European Youth Parliament (EYP).
The session will have its very own international group of journalists in charge of writing about the event. The team:
James Benge (UK)
Celine Deschilder (BE)
Catherine Vercruyssen (BE)
Michelle Johnsson (SE)
Lelde Benke (LV)