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SOURCE: www.tellBarroso.eu
Welcome bloggers!The main goal of the Centre for European Studies as the official think thank of the European People’s Party is to bring policy making closer to its citizens by stimulating debate from the ground-up and in so doing developing new ideas to provide a base for centre right political research. For that reason the CES is proposing tools which invite European citizens to take part in the political decision-formation process.
Modern, web-based technology will be used to reach out to Europeans. Multiple new initiatives taken by the CES have been put in place to provoke active debate. They include this EuroThinkers blog space and the Centre’s Facebook Forum together with its first web-based pan-European poll. The latter, which has been fully supported by Jose Manuel Barroso, is an interactive non-partisan survey available in six official languages of the EU. The webpage (www.tellBarroso.eu) will officially be launched on 30th March 2009.
It is now up to you, citizens of Europe, to make your voice heard. Feel free to express yourself by joining our blog space and leaving comments. Remember; anyone can take part in active debate: you can be an Eurothinker!
Join The Shout and you’ll be part of something much bigger; thousands of European voices coming together as one, to express ourselves loud and clear.
SOURCE: http://www.caneuhearme.eu/eu/
Did you know that the European elections are almost here? Did you even know that there were European elections? Join The Shout and you’ll be part of something much bigger; thousands of European voices coming together as one, to express ourselves loud and clear.
Think about it. Europe is an amazing place to be a part of. You can travel anywhere you want, study in whichever country you fancy and work wherever you choose – how cool is that? Surely that’s something we should all be shouting about…
Want to know more? Then take a look around. Join the Twitter discussion and tell the EU what Europe means to you – share your experiences and express yourself.
You can also vote in our online polls, get the skinny on what the elections are all about and check out what some of Europe’s top recording artists have to say about being part of the coolest community – Europe.
“South East Mediterranean: the region is one of the important routes of illegal migration to the European Union”
Greece is one of the EU countries which supported the project launched by Nicolas Sarkozy for the Union for the Mediterranean (Union pour la Méditerranée). A country with almost 6,000 big and small islands is not only attached to its antiquity, but also to the Mediterranean sea, which has been the cradle of the ancient Greek civilisation, known for advances in philosophy, architecture, drama, government, and science. A reason why Greece supported Sarkozy’s project – in contrast to other member states – is its geography.
Greece is located in the Balkans, a region marked by the recent wars in Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo and FYROM, just after the fall of the Berlin wall. At the same time, in the East the Greek-Turkish relations are always in the shadow of the Cypriot question.
Linguistically and culturally isolated, with its non-Latin alphabet, Greece made a clear choice with regards to its foreign policy: “We belong to the West” as the former President of the Republic, Constantinos Karamanlis said a few years ago. As a member of NATO, the Council of Europe, and especially of the European Union, the Hellenic Republic intended to create a protective shield within a difficult region, where ethnic cleansings, political instability, abhorrence and absence of democratic values were the norm, not the exception. Thus the creation of the Union for the Mediterranean was also seen by the Greek politicians as one more protective shield.
Potential benefits
Since the “Union for the Mediterranean” is placed within the framework of the EU, the project could have a positive effect on issues such as illegal migration with the reinforcement of the “Poseidon operation” at the Greek – Bulgarian – Turkish borders (the region is one of the important routes of illegal migration to the European Union), as the European agency FRONTEX does, which provides particular added value to the national border management systems of the Member States.
The average per capita income in the south-east Europe is five times lower than in the north, thus the creation of the Union could boost economic growth, tourism, trade and could reinforce investments in the region..
Greece joined the Union for one more reason: it was a French initiative after all. Between the two countries there long lasting excellent bilateral relations, originated by the role of France during the Greek dictatorship, when a great number of political figures lived in Paris and with the accession of Greece in the European Union in 1981. The visit of Nicolas Sarkozy in Athens, (June 6, 2008), the first visit of a French president since 1982, has undoubtedly helped to gain the Greek support to his project.
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