JCI Cosmopolis member Sami Soininen attended the online JCI European Know-How Transfer and summarizes his experience and the meetings with the MEPs below.
Because of Covid-19 pandemic, the event was organized in online format this year. This allowed participating to the event more easily. It was possible to get to the heart of Europe from your own laptop without the inconvenience and costs of travelling. Even though this how event was more accessible, economic, and ecological it meant that some aspects of the event were missing compared to previous years.
My goals in the event were to get some insights about how things are done in European parliament. Especially I wanted to know how MEPs do see circular economy and fostering biodiversity. Also, taxation, tax heavens and overall development of democracy and debating culture in parliament level were themes which interested me.
My highlights of event were the MEP meetings. Total we were able to talk with 4 different MEPs from 3 different European policy groups and countries. Because the online format and several participants, the meetings were moderated. Most of the time did go to overall introductions but fortunately there were also left some time for questions and even for a slight dialogue.
Vlad-Marius BOTOŞ
35 years, Romania (Renew Europe Group)
Mr. Botoş was quite busy with political issues in his home country, but still he was able to join our meeting. I asked him about how shifting to circular economy can help internal markets in EU, if production would move back to Europe from Asia. I did get quite good response, but also response which was very politically correct. Mr. Botoş was also really interested about JCI and youth activism.
Maria WALSH
34 years, Ireland (Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats)
Maria was maybe my favorite MEP out of the four. She had awesome energy and deep inner motivation to change things for better in EU. I asked her about how to avoid polarization of opinions between conservatives and liberals I EU. She had really good answer with multiple levels. She also said that she luckily can have open dialogue with MEPs from opposite political groups.
She was also supporting green deal, women rights etc. And the major force to bring her to EU politics were the fact that real life problems were not talked with in EU enough. She also encouraged us to be part of politics and to give her new ideas and initiatives.
Josianne CUTAJAR
31 years, Malta (Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament)
Maria was the youngest MEP we met. She had reached to the top level of politics really early. In her home island she used to be also youngest local politician, buts he was proud that after her, there have been even younger new politicians in Malta.
She was certain the importance of renewable energy solutions. She also explained how different is the state of affairs in different EU member countries. She stated that in Malta there is not enough land space for windfarms. I suggested that maybe they can replicate some other renewable energy solutions which have be proven to be useful I other EU member countries.
Siegfried MUREŞAN
40 years, Romania (Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats)
Mr. Mureşan holds vice-chair in Group of the European People’s Party which is currently biggest group in parliament. He had clearly a lot of experience about politics from national and European level.
I asked him about how EU is fighting against tax heavens and how does he see the increasing debts of EU/Euro member states. He did give really well put answer and he assured that EU keep fighting against tax heavens. In his opinion EU member states should not take too mouch debts, because later on it can affect negatively to stability and resilience of different crisis.
