The 5th of November 2002 pupils from Berlin and the region of Brandenburg met in the Abgeordnetenhaus in Berlin to take over the Convention of the future of Europe. For a whole day JEB (the Berlin section of the Young European Federalists) gave them the chance to experience what it means to work on the European Constitution. A similar event takes place every year and is usually a simulation of a European Parliament Session (that´s why is official called SimEP). This year the students were not simulating the parliament but had a even harder job: they were simulating the convention of the future of Europe. As in the “real” convention they took over the role of members of national governments and parliaments of member states and future member states of the EU, as well as of members of the European Parliament. Like in the convention in Brussels, they had a day of hard work so they started early in the morning discussing within their parties about a given resolution.

That´s when the first debates on the wording started and the interest of the students showed that it is much more fun seing how politics work as just watching it on TV. All of them were very active and so the counsellors of JEB, like the new head of JEF Germany Jan Seifert, enjoyed hearing so many ideas and suggestions about the future constitution of Europe. After the lunchbreak the discussion was opened up to all parties. That was when the students all got to sit in the Plenary and fought for their ideas.

They all managed to be a members of the convention very well and started hard and emotional debates on the three main topics: social policies, migration and a Common Security and Defense. The debate got more and more intense and at the end of the day, most of the participants voted in favor of the final resultion.

Peter Altmaier, member of the convention, gave a few comments on the work in the convent, thanked the students for their hard work and released the pupils back into their normal lifes, after a full and exciting day as members of the convention. But for the students this experience is not over yet: in the end of november there will be an Follow-up meeting of the simulation, where there will be time to look at the pictures taken and of course to discuss again about the way Europe is going…

Lydia Leipert, Berlin, 11.11.02