Homework: The "Sometime-Europe"

Nr.3
"The citizens, it is believed, do not understand the greatness and the whole idea of the European Union.”
I think that it is right. Not each person knows everything about the EU and in this case not many people know what the European Constitution is about, because it is such a big book. So it is better if politicians with knowledge decide about the European Constitution than common people who have no clue. Anyway, most of the common people aren't interested in politics. But there are still some common people who are knowing what the European Constitution is about, and they are disadvantaged, if they don’t get any chance to vote.

Nr.4
Would you like the EU more if you were able to decide more?
I already like the EU. But If I were able to decide more I would like the EU more. Everybody should get a chance to influence the policy, but most people don't care about it. I'm still not 18 years old, that means that i can't take part in votings, but I'm sure that I'll take part then in votings next year.
If there are e.g. changings or new laws in the EU, it concerns to every citizen of a member state, so I think that everybody should get a chance to decide, so I would like the EU more if you are able to decide more.

Homework: Steps of integration

Nr.4
European Monetary Union (1999):
The highest step on the ladder is the monetary union in an economical sense and concerning currency. The standardization of all economically relevant directives/regulations and procedures has been concluded and there is a common currency. In a political union a common supranational level is added.

European Single Market (1993):
In a common market capital and capacity for work can move freely. Anyone can make investments in any of the member states, start an enterprise or start to work there. In a common market frontier control has been abolished and the economically relevant norms as well as legal and protective directives have been harmonized.

European Free Trade Association (1958):
A free trade area ensures trade with goods and services without customs duty or restriction in quantity. However, each member state of the free trade area has the right to impose their own external tariffs.

Roman Treaties (1957):
In a customs union there are furthermore common external tariffs.

Nr.5
The president of Luxembourg once said: "The monetary union is the continuation of peace policy with different means." Please elucidate his remark. Which of the two perspectives does he employ? Explain.
The president of Luxembourg once said: "The monetary union is the continuation of peace policy with different means." Please elucidate his remark. Which of the two perspectives does he employ? Explain.I think that he is right. Because of the European Monetary Union the 25 members states have to work more closer together. They want to save the price stability, that means every member state has to save the price stability and if one of the members doesn’t follow this arrangement, it would cause damage to itself. So they have to work together in peace. He employs the perspektive of "teamwork of states".

Nr.6
Are the steps historical steps towards an European federal state? What do you think, will there ever be "The United States of Europe"?
Yes, I think they are historical steps towards an European federal state, because the member states have to work closely together.
I don't think that there will ever be "The United States of Europe". Every member state of the EU has different interests. So it is very difficult to have a government which accomplishes every interest and this is rather unrealizable. And I think that some member states like to be in the EU, because they have thereby more advantages, e.g. the EU helps them if they have economy problems, the EU wants to save peace and so on. But actually I think that they want to keep their own identity and their own mentality, this is also against an USE.
But if there will ever be "The United States of Europe", it would be really great. Every member state would have the same powers and the same economy, there would be one great nation. But this is just a dream.

Contacting a MEP

I have send an email to Mrs. Zita Gurmai and to Mrs. Àgres Vadai, both of them are members of the European Parliament for Hungary.

Dear Mrs. Zita Gurmai / Mrs. Àgres Vadai,

my name is Patrick Hagenauer, I'm student at the Geschwister-Scholl-Schule in Constance, Germany. My Homework is to write an email to a Member of the European Parliament for our weblog (http://elfb.blogspot.com) about our bilingual unit on the "European Union". Every student has got a country, which he has to present in his weblog and I have got Hungary. So this is why I'm writing to you.

There is a proposal of the European Commission which wants to replace the existing 110 models of driving licence in the 25 Member States by a single EU format. How do you think about the legislation process on the driving licence issue? What is your behaviour in this process? Are there any amendsments of the Parliament to this proposal? I also wonder, if it is difficult to find a compromise with other members to get a qualified majority when you want to adopt or amend something. I think it is, but it would be very nice if you could explain me how it is for you to be a member of the European Parliament.

Thank you for any answers.

Yours sincerely,
Patrick Hagenauer

I'm still waiting for any answers...=)

Edit: I have also send an email to Gyula Vári, but I havn't got any email yet...

Homework: Protocol about the role play

Good evening,
here is my entry about our role play today. At first we had to build the European Parliament. So everyone got a card with informations on it e.g. which group you belong to and how much members of European Parliament you present. I was in the Group of the Party of European Socialists and becaue there are over 700 MEPs in the Parliament, everyboy represented more than one MEP.
After building the Parliament we have got a proposal of the Commission. The proposal was about that driving licences should be validated throughout all EU member states every 10 years and if drivers are over 65 years every 5 years. After that time you have to do a medical check. The second thought of the proposal was that new plastic cards will be used which carry biometric data on so-calld "smart chips". Then our group has to find an opinion about it and if we want to refuse, adopt or amend something to the proposal. It wasn't very difficult to form coalitions with other parties to get a qualified majority, because every party in the class had approximately the same opinion about the proposal. We made a voting and because almost everyone was against the second thought of the proposal, we refused it. The time was sadly to short to play a minister in the Council.
In reality I think that there are still more problems to adopt a proposal. You have to search for other MEPs/ministers who have the same opinion to get a qualified majority. That's difficult. You have to imagine that there are 25 member states in the EU and every member state has his own interests.
The role play was good for a better unterstanding of the codecision procedure. Of course you can imagine how the procedure works, but with a role play e.g. you have to take the role of a person and you have to think about how this person would react in this special situation.

Homework: The codecision procedure in the EU

Hey,
this is my third entry and I want to explain how the codecision procedure in the EU works.

First the European Commission submits a proposal to the European Parliament(EP) and to the Council of the EU. Then the EP reads the proposal and tries to find an opinion. If the EP has an opinion, then the Commission amends it to the proposal and submits an amended proposal to the Council.
Now it's the turn of the Council. There are three possibilities:
1.) The Council approves all the amendments of the EP, so the act can be adopt as amended by the EP.
2.) If the EP hasn't amended anything, the Council can adopt the act too.
3.) After the Council has received the proposal, it adopts a 'common position' with a qualified majority. Then the Commission publishes the notification of to Council.

If the third possibillity is the case then the EP begins with the second reading and checks the common position of the Council. Now there are also three possibillities how the EP can react:
1.) If the EP approves the position of the Council or makes no comments at all, the act is deemed to be adopted immediately.
2.) If the EP rejects the 'common position' of the Council, the procedure stops and the act is deemed not to be adopted.
3.) The EP wants to propose amendments to the common position of the Council.

If the third possibillity is the case, then the Commission has to check the amendments and has to give an opinion about the whole amended position. Now there are two possibillities:
1.) The Council approves the amended position...
a) ...by a qualified majority if the Commission has delivered a positive opinion, that means if the Commission agrees with the amendments.
b) ...unanimously if the Commission has delivered a negative opinion and disagrees with the amendments.
2.) The Council does not approve all amendments of the EP. So the president of the Council and the president of the EP (by mutual agreement) convene the Conciliation Committee. The Commission also takes part in the conciliation works. The goal of this Conciliation Commitee is to find an agreement so that the amendments of the EP and the common position of the Council are accomplished.
If the second possibillity is the case, then there are two possibillities again:
1.) The Conciliation Commitee brings about an agreement and the EP and the Council approves the act with an absolute or a qualified majority. But if one of the bodies doesn't approve, the act is not adopted.
2.) The Conciliation Committee doesn't bring about any agreement. That means that the act is not adopted.

So, I hope you can understand it. At first it wasn't very easy to understand the whole procedure, but after a detailed thinking about it, it wasn't too difficult anymore. The only confusing things were the mistakes in the scheme.

See you,
Patrick

Homework: Diary entry

Hey,
here I want you to present something about our first 3 bilingual lessons in 'social studies'.
The first lesson was on Monday April 4th:
We began with a general introduction to the topic "European Union". Mrs. Schmidt gave us yellow vocabulary pages with new unknown words and then she presented us a little overview what we are going to do in the 4 weeks and she showed us 8 rules for bilingual, web-logged lessons, e.g. that we should try to speak as much English as possible or how we should behave writting a weblog. Then Mrs. Schmidt told us the difference between the 3 dimensions to politics: Policy, politics, and polity. Policy is the dimension of political content, e.g. agricultural policy, politics is the process-oriented dimension with a lot of discussions and problem-solving, e.g. what we see on tv every day and polity is the formal dimension which includes all institutes and organisations like the E’ Parliament or the E’ Commission.
After these theoretical things we build three groups to complete a giant jigsaw puzzle of Europe. It was not very difficult to complete this puzzle because our group worked very well together, so our group finished at first. It was very funny and so we got a first overview on the geographically location of Europe.
The second lesson was on Wednesday April 6th:
We talked about different consequences that the European Union has on our lives. At first we build seven groups and every group got a text. We should do the tasks, which are given under the text, e.g. to find the important points in the text. The text of my group was about condoms in the EU and the topic was "Germans too small for condoms?". After finishing the group work, we build four expert groups to tell each other what we had read and what was standing in the text.
The third lesson was on Friday April 8th:
This was the best one of the three lessons. We talked about weblogs. I have already seen some blogs in the internet before and I think that they are very useful, because you don't have to know something about HTML or how to make a homepage. They are very easy to handle. Everyone can work with weblogs.
So, we had to make our own weblog. I liked very much making a weblog, because I know HTML quite well and homepage-making/internet is also one of my hobbies. To make weblogs in school is a very good idea.
All in all, to sum up, I would say that the billingual lessons in social studies were very interesting, even if we're knowing already something about the EU, it's new for us to talk english in social studies and to talk so detailled about the EU in another language. I liked working in groups. It's very favorable that we can download us the texts, namely the texts from each group. I hope that the following lessons will be so good as the first 3 (4) lessons. So let's go!

So far,
Patrick

Facts about "my" country: Hungary

English name of country: Hungary
Name of country in national language: Magyarország
Official language: Hungarian
Capital city: Budapest
Political system: Parliamentary democracy
President: Ferenc Mádl
Member of: EU, NATO
Member of EU since: May 1, 2004
Population: 10,006,835
Currency: Forint
Gross domestic product (GDP): $147,472 million