Coordination team in Strasbourg

We’ve spent the past few days here in the press room of the European Parliament in Strasbourg. It’s an exciting week – as it’s the first session for the newly elected parliament, which includes 370 new MEPs. No legislation is being voted on, but there’s still quite a buzz here in the press room – Monday marked the 30^th anniversary of direct European elections; and the election of the new Polish EP president, Jerzy Buzek (EPP), marks a milestone too, given that Poland only joined the EU 5 years ago.

So what are we doing here? Well, the EYMD are officially hosted by the European Parliament, and we (as part of the European Youth Press) are responsible for the organisational side. For this to work, we need close cooperation with MEPs and with Parliament staff, who we’ll be needing both to participate in workshops and discussions, but also to help communicate our event all throughout the EU. It’s important too that we’re really up to date with what’s going on in the Parliament between now and October – that we know what MEPs are working on, when we’ll be able to get hold of them – and that we establish as soon as possible who we want to work with. It’s also been a great chance to see the way things work from inside the press room and to begin working together in these busy, multilingual surroundings. And while we’re here, we’ve also managed to meet with the Council of Europe to discuss possible cooperation with them.

The new parliament has the potential to make for an interesting next term, with new political groups formed and an increased number of eurosceptic and nationalist members. 35% of MEPs are women, and members include 3 former Commissioners and 8 former prime ministers. This morning’s lively session reviewing the Czech presidency of the EU saw Nigel Farage of the highly eurosceptic UK Independence Party taking on Mr Barroso, seated just 2 seats away: “You don’t ever support the results of democratic processes, it’s all about power, it’s all about you and the institutions… I hope the Irish tell you all where to go!” Barroso’s only response was to point out that if Farage was allowed to display the British flag at his seat, then he’d do the same – and he happily displayed his own – conveniently available – EU flag. This afternoon, a joint press conference with EP president, Commission president and Swedish PM revealed more confusion than anything else about how things are going to proceed in the next six months until the treaty deadlock is cleared up. Interesting times…