Shrewsbury School pupils attend the Euroscola conference, Strasbourg
16 Jul 2015
A group of 23 students from the School’s Model United Nations team were given a rare chance to experience life as members of the European Parliament when they took part in the Euroscola conference, held in the European Parliament building in Strasbourg. Representing the UK, they joined more than 500 other young delegates from 27 EU countries. Afterwards Mr Peach described it as “one of the most successful Shrewsbury performances that I have ever witnessed in my 20+ years of doing MUN”.
After being welcomed by European Parliament staff, each of the delegations gave an opening speech. Dan Edwards and Esmé O’Keeffe did a good job introducing Shrewsbury School in French and German, and used a Darwin quote to suggest that the EU should adapt to change if it wishes to survive. This was followed by a chance for the delegates to ask questions of German, Spanish and Maltese civil servants working for the European Parliament .
The Euroscola students were then divided into six multi-lingual ‘working groups’ (or what MUN-ers would call committees) to debate issues concerning the environment, aid to developing countries, the future of Europe, freedom of information, migration and integration and youth employment. Each group elected a chair and a reporter to summarise their conclusions. The job of the reporter was to report back to the Parliament in its plenary session and take questions from other delegates. Amazingly, four of the six reporters were from Shrewsbury School.
The first to speak was Koby Ferdinand-Okpala, a Third Former from School House. Koby’s topic was the environment; his report was confident, clear and constructive, his answers to questions were unhurried and cogent, and the parliament voted by 428 to 30 to accept his report.
Hardened MUN veteran, Dan Edwards, was next to give his report from the front of the parliament. He talked about foreign aid from the EU, the dangers of aid dependency, the need for tracking of aid, and dealt ably with the (not always friendly) questions from the parliament (90% of which came from Shrewsbury delegates). His report was voted through by 226 to 168 with 151 abstentions.
The next reporter was Ed Plaut, whose working groups’ ideas for the future of Europe included subsidising language teaching, lowering university costs, more welfare for the poorest, higher taxes, more rights for women and EU-wide recognition of gay marriage. This report, too, passed through Parliament.
Finally Guy Cabral gave a very clear, slow, steady and comprehensible report, taking his multi-lingual audience with him, on the subject of migration and integration.
After the debate, it was the final of the Eurogame. Earlier in the day teams of four people from four different EU countries had formed to do a multi-lingual written quiz in languages like Estonian, Finnish, Magyar and Romanian. Dan Edwards was a member of the team that eventually emerged victorious.
The day was a great success in explaining the work of the parliament in an engaging manner. It was a brilliant, very memorable way of getting young people (and their teachers!) engaged in international issues. I am sure that the effect of what they experienced, the people they met, the time they spent in Strasbourg and the debates they had, will last with our Salopian debaters for a long time to come.
Huw Peach
Photo: Esmé O’Keeffe and Dan Edwards introducing Shrewsbury in English, French and German