Category Archives: EC in UK

How do I find out about the EU?

  By antonia | January 23, 2013 - 11:57 am | EC in UK, European news, UK40
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A point that I’ve heard since I started working at the Representation, and one that came up again today in the wake of #thespeech is along these lines:

I don’t know much about the EU and I don’t know where to go to find out.

 

So here’s my selection of EU Starters for Ten:

I would start with Helen Wallace’s run-down on the 40 years of membership in the Journal of Contemporary European Research. It has a useful timeline, rounds up the main areas of narrative and even includes a comparative table of public opinion since 1973.

I then suggest listening to Europe’s Choice, a short series by Allan Little and Jane Beresford on Radio 4 that looked at the elements contributing to the Euro’s current situation.

My next point of call would be the Charlemagne blog at the Economist, in all of his recent incarnations (he’s like Doctor Who, you know, and regenerates every few years). Certainly the EU specific articles are knowledgable and interesting, and those on other European countries can give useful context that is sometimes missing in the debate here.

Suggestions made by others included:

State of the Union by Anand Menon

Europe in 12 lessons (written by Pascal Fontaine and published by the European Union Publications Office)

I’d be interested to know what others would put forward as a good place for an interested newcomer to start finding out about the EU. If you have a suggestion, please leave a comment.

 

Back to reality

  By antonia | September 10, 2012 - 9:29 am | Digital/social media, EC in UK, Languages
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Wasn’t it wonderful? This great British summer of sport and culture and more? I played my own very small part in it, as a volunteer during the Olympics. I didn’t get to stand with a big pink foam hand – rather I was in the Athletes’ Village, helping with transport information.

But now it’s over and we have to get back to normality. We’ve got a lot coming up including the European Day of Languages, the Mock Council simulation day (and here’s an interesting paper on the value of simulations as a teaching aid) and Single Market Week, marking 20 years of the single market.

12-16 November is Internet Week Europe, a festival of digitalness around the Lovie awards which recognise the best of the web in English, French, Spanish, German and Italian. This isn’t organised by the Commission or EU, but obviously the idea of the multilingual web is interesting and so I thought it would be good to do European Multilingual Blogging Day 2012 in association with them. Hopefully it’ll be the biggest and best yet! If you’re interested in taking part, sign-up with the form, so that I can curate all the different entries. On 14 November, write your blog in a different language, or get a guest blogger in to do so. Write about whatever you want, though if you’re not sure where to start, maybe something about what languages mean to you might be a good place to start. I hope we’ll get lots of you taking part!

A good day

  By antonia | July 3, 2012 - 9:24 am | Culture, EC in UK, Languages
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My friends will know that I’ve been having a bit of a hard time recently and am feeling quite unsettled about my life. Whether it’s chicken or egg, I don’t know, but this feeling of unease has also applied to my job. Maybe it’s unsurprising given I have worked for the Commission for 18 years. But then sometimes a day comes along that makes you think, my job rocks. Not only is it interesting and varied and intellectually challenging, but I am also part of something that is actually helping people and changing attitudes. And that day was yesterday.

It all started at Arsenal Emirates Stadium, where the kids involved in the Arsenal Double Club Olympic Song, Together in the Language of Sport, were putting together the video. The Double Club is a project that we have been involved in for several years, which uses football to help kids engage with foreign languages. Working with the Goethe Institut in particular, a song was written and schools were invited to take part in a competition where they wrote verses along the Olympic theme in 5 different languages (Spanish, French, Italian, German and Greek) and an English chorus. They recorded the song, and then yesterday 350 kids came to Arsenal to do the video. It was lovely seeing all these kids singing with great gusto in different languages. As a language junkie, I also loved learning the chorus in British Sign Language. Whenever I meet a deaf person now I’ll be able to have a great conversation, as long as it involves the phrases “there’s no losing, only winning” and “all together in the language of sport”. Here’s a brief taster of the video, which will be released officially on 18 July. Be warned – the song is a complete earworm that you’ll be humming for the rest of the day.

Then that evening I headed to the Royal Opera House for an event the like of which I’m sure that august venue has never seen. It was called With1voice and was a one-night festival with performers who are or have been homeless. There were two rooms, one more acoustic, with individual performers, poets, films and then a mainstage, with bands, choirs and theatre groups. It all came to a head with Streetwise Opera blasting out O Sole Mio. It was an astonishing evening, and really challenged my preconceptions of homelessness. It really made me realise that but for a few quirks of fate, that could be me, you, anyone. I think of all the acts I saw, the one that affected me most was Veteran Voices, based in Aldershot. Two of the former soldiers read poems they had written. They weren’t the greatest poetry ever written (and I know, because I write bad poetry myself), but these quite buttoned-up men, trained to be emotionless and direct, writing about what has happened to them in a very matter-of-fact way, but with the pain and hurt leaking out of the seams was so very moving. How has it come to this, that men who offered their lives to protect us are living in sheltered accommodation?

This was part of the London 2012 festival/Cultural Olympiad and the first time that homeless people have had a voice during the Olympics. There’s a petition to sign, if you’d like it to be a regular part. And an article in the Society Guardian to get another point of view of the night.

Some of the acts and films showcased:

Jason Hinchey

The Homeless World Cup

 

Erasmus at 25

  By antonia | May 18, 2012 - 1:52 pm | EC in UK
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Erasmus at 25

Celebrating 25 years of European student mobility

Storified by Antonia Mochan · Fri, May 18 2012 09:42:56

Almost exactly 20 eyars ago, I got on a ferry and headed off to the Netherlands to spend 4 months at the University of Leiden on an Erasmus exchange. I had classes there with Hungarians, Belgians, Spaniards, Danes, Americans and those are just the ones I can remember. Yesterday the British Council, the UK national agency for the Erasmus programme, held a birthday party to celebrate this landmark and highlight the importance of the programme.
25th-anniversary – british coucnil- erasmusNearly three million students from across Europe have benefited from a study period or work placement abroad since the creation of the Er…
Love the typo! We started with Martin Davidson, Chief Executive of the British Council, who highlighted the importance of global education for UK prosperity.
This is so true: "The Erasmus generation is the generation which will give us a competitive edge." Martin DavidsonLizzie Fane
He also gave us the numbers for the programme:
925 in first year, more than 12000 last year, 200k brits over life. better degrees, career prospects, lifetime earnings. #erasmus25Antonia Mochan
But it wasn’t all about dwelling on success, but looking to the future
davidson: challenge is building for the future. get business on board. help students understand the benefits. #erasmus25Antonia Mochan
Then David Willetts, the Universities Minister spoke and it was good to hear a government minister extolling the virtues of a European programme.
Willetts. #erasmus25 changing lives, opening minds. unis benefit from stronger links overseas. businesses value knowledge of other culturesAntonia Mochan
He also announced that it had been agreed to fund a 15% fee waiver for students studying abroad during their degree
BIS media information for journalists and the press – Press Releases – Report recommends measures to support and increase outward UK student mobility – BISThe report by Professor Colin Riordan, Chair of the UK HE International Unit, looks at the incentives and obstacles to students studying …
Then it was over to participants. Annette Strauss of the University of Surrey had been involved from early on and spoke a bit about the background, including the difficulties of multi-country partnerships in the days before email :) She also made a point that I think we need to pick up on in the representation
Strauss: UK could make more use of staff exchanges. #erasmus25Antonia Mochan
Any thoughts about how to do so are very welcome!

Next up was Lizzie Fane of Third Year Abroad.

Make the most of your time away with our latest info, help and advice for year abroad students… – Third Year AbroadThe complete resource for university students before, during and after their year abroad, including case studies, language help, Erasmus …
If anyone at the #erasmus25 event wants to read the graduate career case studies I mentioned, check out http://www.thirdyearabroad.com/graduates :) Lizzie Fane
Angela Pearce was an alumna from the very first year and talked about coach travel, phone cards and waiting for letter from home, which brought back some memories!

Julia Kennedy from Robert Gordon University spoke about the value of the staff exchanges, telling the story of an academic who told his students not to do Erasmus as it was bad for their degrees. Then he did a staff exchange and, like Saul on the road to Damascus, everything changed and now he is one of the biggest fans in the university.

Last of the alumni was Muhammed Abbas Abdulla from Queen Mary University
muhammed abbas abdulla, recent alum. split Germany & Spain. Don’t prepare, let it happen. live daily life, just somewhere else #erasmus25Antonia Mochan
Last up was Steven Beswick of Microsoft.
Beswick: intl experience vital to showing 6 core attributes microsoft looks for eg honesty, integrity, self-awareness, openness #erasmus25Antonia Mochan
He told the recent story of two candidates, one with a first from Oxford , the other with a 2:1 from non-Oxbridge. But the skills that the non-Oxbridge candidate had, enhanced by their Erasmus experience, swung them the job.

Speeches over, we then got on with the fun bit – eating the cake!

Oh wow – check out Erasmus’s 25th birthday cake!!! http://instagr.am/p/Kuq01MlLtR/Lizzie Fane

Completing the move. Almost.

  By antonia | April 19, 2012 - 4:01 pm | Digital/social media, EC in UK, European Year of Active Ageing, European Year of Volunteering
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So I now seem to have managed to do an almost complete import of the old blog onto this platform, which is great. Some images seem not to have made the move, but I’m not sure it’s worth fixing that until I need to on a case-by-case basis. So now it feels like the boxes are unpacked and I can enjoy the new place.

I was pleasantly surprised to be mentioned in Ron Patz’s post today about women Euro-bloggers, as I don’t write half as much as I a) used to and b) would like to. Some of a) is about the fact that I changed job, and also that we got better at a Rep level – the creation of the Euromyths blog on the Rep website replaced the subject that dominated my early posts. Twitter is a better place for bringing people’s attention to interesting links or items. And my focus is much less political these days – I’m dealing with schools and information networks and things like that, not the stories dominating the headlines. Which is not to say that what I do now is not important – on the contrary, I think it’s importance is undervalued (though I guess I would say that, wouldn’t I!). So I will continue to write about what I do when I can and hopefully that will be interesting to at least some of you out there.

So what am I doing? The next thing that I’m quite excited about is our Spring Online day next Friday. As part of the Digital Unite Spring Online campaign and taking into account this year’s focus on Active Ageing, we are going to host a digital clinic here in Europe House with about 50 older people from across London. Volunteers from this office and the Department of Work and Pensions will help them with their digital queries from sending a text message to setting up a skype account. We’ll have Kindles, iPads and Wiis to demonstrate. The whole thing should be useful and fun and I’m really looking forward to it!

A busy few weeks

  By antonia | March 31, 2012 - 7:49 pm | Digital/social media, EC in UK, EU Careers, Europe Direct, European Year of Active Ageing, Languages, Media, Personal, Regions, Youth
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Over the last few weeks I feel I have hardly had a chance to draw breath and though at various times I’ve thought “I’ll blog about that”, events always passed me by. I’ve got a bit of time now at the end of the last day before I head off on a couple of weeks leave, so I’ll try to remember some of the points I was going to make.

I was in Brussels for a few days at the start of what will be known as the March Marathon, and one of the reasons was to do a workshop (well, 2, but they were the same) on using social media for Europe Direct Information Centres. While they receive some funding from the Commission for their information activities, they are  individual organisations, and their form ranges from NGOs or Community interest companies, to library services or regional government. So their needs vary and their flexibility to act independently does too. I did a presentation, then asked Europe Direct Leeds to show what they do, then gave them some time to discuss in small groups, share their own experiences, then a few of those in the room showed what they were doing. It was interesting to see how differently they were using the same tools, but there were enough ideas to share, and I’ve already nicked one from Europe Direct Ulm, using the Timeline feature on Facebook to show EU milestones. I was a bit worried about the pedagogical side of running a workshop, but the feedback has been good, so I think I got away with it :)

I then headed back to the UK to do a careers talk at Leicester University. This was a repeat invite (always a compliment to be asked back) and this time instead of just the Modern Languages Department, it was advertised across the university. There were about 60 students there I think and after my presentation, there were lots of lively questions. I’m always slightly perplexed at these events by the weight of interest among the students on internships, rather than the full-time, long-term career prospects offered by applying for the concours. I wonder why that is. It could be that they aren’t interested in the EU as a long-term career, but see EU knowledge as important for other things. Or it could be that they are so fixated on internships as a route into work they miss the turning for the work itself. Frankly it feels a bit more like the latter, though I’d be happy to be corrected on that.

The next day was a Saturday and just to add to the madness of those few weeks, it was the second of my two Open University tutorials. I’ve enjoyed the creative writing course, but I don’t think you’ll be reading my name in the Booker Prize longlist any time soon…

Then on the Sunday it was off to Manchester for the Apeldoorn conference, which brings together Dutch and UK people from across business and society. The theme this time was Higher Education at the Heart of Growth and we had some excellent speakers, including the Universities Minister, David Willetts. Apeldoorn is really great for the people you meet, on your own “side” as much as from over the North Sea, with some really useful contacts made for the future. I also had a #technologywin: with the purchase of one little VGA adaptor I was able to present the conclusions of the workshop for which I was rapporteur direct from my iPad. Just a further example of how my iPad has become the kernel of a mobile office as far as I’m concerned.

The day after I got back from Manchester it was off to Birmingham for the Education Show. Our stall was pretty mobbed, with the Passport to the European Union and Languages Take You Further publications particularly popular. Thousands of people passed through our stall over the three days, and not one was critical or hostile in any way, in fact they were on the whole delighted with the support, particularly for the languages. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the introduction of languages in primary schools, it seems pretty clear that there are many teachers who feel a bit lost and are glad to have ideas of what to do. Obviously we provide pretty bland material, click the links to see them for yourself, and it’s completely up to teachers how they want to use them in their classrooms.

I’ve been back in London since then, but out at some really interesting events. I Storified the Westminster Media Forum event on press regulation. I chaired a fascinating afternoon linked to the European Year of Active Ageing, in which the Greater London Forum for Older People got about 120 of their members together to hear about the cooperation that Enfield over-50s Forum has been doing with twin towns in France and Germany. I was roped in the afternoon before to chair the event as the chair dropped out, and I’m very glad I did, as it was fascinating. One thing that came out very clearly was the strength of attachment to the Freedom Pass. Many older people see it as a lifeline, getting them out of the house and allowing them to have a social life, thereby keeping them healthy both physically and mentally. Mess with it at your peril, Mayor of London, whoever you end up being.

The final noteworthy events took place on the same day. I was representing the office at the British Academy event on the value of a year abroad, and you can read my tweets about it by searching the #yrabroad hashtag. There was a lot of talk about the usefulness of social media in getting students interested in a year abroad, but precious little social media going on at the event. Lizzie Fane at Third Year Abroad is an honourable exception in terms of her use of social media, but I have to admit that there was probably an age thing going on, which is as worrying in its own way. 100% of the students that took part in Lizzie’s graduate survey said their time spent abroad during their degree had been worth it, but the average age in the room of people talking about the policy aspects must have been pushing 50 plus.

While I was at the British Academy, and mainly during the lunch break, I took part in a Q&A on the Guardian Voluntary Sector Network about how charities can access EU funding. The Q&A is here and the best bits summed up here. The Guardian does these Q&As very well; I’ve previously done one on languages for careers and there was another on a similar theme this week.

Anyway, after all that and judging the UACES/ThomsonReuters Reporting Europe Prize, I think I’ve earned my two weeks away. So I’m off. Have a great Easter, everyone.

Inspirational youngsters

  By antonia | February 27, 2012 - 2:28 pm | EC in UK, Europe Direct
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I was in Scotland last week, which is never a chore. I had been invited to chair the Annual Schools Debate hosted by the Europe Direct in Aberdeen. 8 teams of 13 and 14-year-olds debated whether the EU should make more use of social media to engage with young people and then the final was whether school mobility programmes should be compulsory. Congratulations to the team from Robert Gordon School who won, with a very impassioned performance. It was a competition, so someone won, but really it was about so much more. All the students displayed such poise and confidence in their debating, attributes I’m certain I didn’t possess in that quantity at their age. It was a real pleasure to be part of it. They were so polite, too: at least two teams came up afterwards to thank us for the event. So when people start going on about the youth of today, I have some really good examples to give.

After Aberdeen I went to Edinburgh, where I took part in a working group meeting of the Scottish European Resources Network. I was interested in what they do as I’m trying to think about how/whether to do something for the whole UK EU information scene. To please fill out/pass on the survey on this, if you haven’t already.

Reporting Europe 2012

  By antonia | November 23, 2011 - 2:22 pm | EC in UK, Media
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Nominations are open for the UACES – Thomson Reuters Reporting Europe Prize 2012. There have been some interesting winners in the few years I’ve been going along. It’s very far from a hagiographic prize, as a brief glimpse at some of the former winners will show. I’m very honoured to have been invited to sit on the jury this year, so I won’t be doing any nominating this time. But in a year when we’ve seen European Union issues covered to an unprecedented extent, I’m sure there will be lots for the jury to get their teeth into.

Getting in the swing of the EU

  By antonia | November 21, 2011 - 2:45 pm | EC in UK, EU Careers
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I was quite busy on Friday and didn’t get the chance to blog about the Thursday event we organised with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and British Council. 58 (well 57 because 1 went astray) sixth formers came to Lancaster House to take part in a role-playing exercise based on the EU’s decision-making body the Council of Ministers. The schools all played a particular EU Member State, or the Commission or the Secretariat-General of the Council. They were sent briefing papers a few weeks before the event and came to Lancaster House on Thursday ready to debate the issues from the point of view of the country they were assigned. This time, for the first year, we had interpretation as well, giving a real sense of the multilingualism of the real Council. Not only did some of the speakers from the organisers speak in French and German, but quite a few of the students did too: the “French” representative in one of the working groups even taking verisimilitude so far she spoke French every time she took the floor!

There’s a Facebook page: www.facebook.com/EUMockCouncil and some videos on YouTube as well, with students and teachers talking about their experience.

Teachers talk about the day

The Netherlands talks about her day

It was a fabulous day. There was an incredible buzz from the beginning, and the students really got into their roles. I was following the working group on the Arab Spring and it got very passionate! There’s lots of talk about young people being disengaged from the Political process, but on the evidence of Thursday, that isn’t the case. Maybe it’s about them feeling involved. Quite apart from what they learn in terms of the EU decision-making process, several of the teachers mentioned how important it was for developing students’ confidence. Maybe none of them are looking for careers in politics or administration, but learning about engaging with people, defending a point of view and talking in front of people are all valuable skills for life.

The costs of regulation

  By antonia | October 17, 2011 - 10:28 am | EC in UK
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Came across an interesting article in today’s NY Times on whether product regulation is a cost to business. Some choice excerpts:

Unfortunately, they ignore a vital point: health and safety agencies rarely impose new costs on society when we issue safety regulations. We simply re-allocate who pays the costs.

Anyone who insists that regulations necessarily impose new costs on society shouldn’t be taken seriously. The costs are already there, in the form of deaths and injuries — and are often as much of a drag on our economy as any safety rule. So the real issue is who should bear the costs.

Not all regulation is bad, nor is it always more costly. And one of the ways to ensure that our safety rules are cost-effective is to use thoughtful cost-benefit analysis.

HT to Stefano Soro for finding the article.