Young Reporters sum up the Presidency: the EU isn’t that complicated!

The visit of the Commission to Stockholm on 1 July, an informal meeting of finance minsters in Göteborg and COP15 in Copenhagen. These are examples of some of the meetings that Young Reporters have covered during the Swedish Presidency of the EU. When the reporters sum up the Presidency, both pupils and teachers are in agreement that they have learnt a lot more about the EU, the reporters have been well received by both ministers and media and the project has been characterised by whole-hearted commitment.

Photo: Maj-Britt Nilsson/Regeringskansliet

Louise Wrange, Erik Greve, Louise Tollén and Shahnam Ayoubi from Grennaskolans Riksinternat reported from the EPSCO meeting in Jönköping.

A total of 46 upper secondary school pupils from cities as far apart as Malmö in the south and Umeå in the north have participated in the schools project Young Reporters. They have reported from the Swedish EU Presidency from their own experiences and perspective. The pupils have written articles, taken photographs, conducted webcast interviews in front of the camera and interviewed ministers live on stage. The young reporters’ articles, pictures and films have been published in their own section on the Presidency website.

Important to dare to get seen
Nacka gymnasium in Stockholm was the school with the most pupils involved in the project. How do they sum up their experiences?
“We have become much more self-confident! If you don’t step forward and get yourself seen, you don’t get results. We have learnt loads about how to write well and take photographs through working with professional journalists and photographers. At the various press conferences we also learnt a lot about the factual issues, for example foreign policy, justice, climate change and animal welfare. Last but not least, we have met lots of very interesting people and seen how everything from security to food is organised.”

Behind the project is Minister for EU Affairs Cecilia Malmström, who in the spring invited all the upper secondary schools in the seven counties hosting informal ministerial meetings to take part in the project. A fundamental idea has been for more young people to realise that the EU is not all that complicated and distant, but is rather something that concerns everyone. The Minister for EU Affairs has followed the young reporters’ work with great interest.
“It is great that they have had the opportunity to ask really important questions. I like the fact that the articles are direct and not filled with EU rhetoric, and I also like the fact that they are not as cynical as others tend to be”, says Ms Malmström.

A lot of attention in the media
The project has received a lot of attention in the media, both at home in Sweden and in the rest of Europe. The German magazine ‘Der Spiegel’, for example, chose to follow Emily Aisling Hall from Kungstensgymnasiet in Stockholm on the very first day of the Swedish Presidency. A number of local media have also followed ‘their’ young reporters, for example, during the meetings on energy and climate change in Åre and the meeting on competitiveness in Umeå.

The EPSCO meeting in Jönköping was the first ministerial meeting that Young Reporters covered. The four pupils from Grennaskolan Riksinternat set their sights high and left nothing to chance. Erik Greve’s first photography assignment was to photograph Crown Princess Victoria when she arrived at Jönköping University.
 
In September the informal meeting of agriculture ministers took place in Växjö in Småland. The young reporters, together with other journalists, accompanied the ministers into the forests of Småland to visit two farms. Later in the month, the young reporters from Västra Götaland County had a lot going on and so received help from the reporters from Jönköping County. Between them they reported from three informal ministerial meetings and the Göteborg Book Fair, where both Minister for EU Affairs Cecilia Malmström and outgoing European Commissioner Margot Wallström were grilled by the young reporters.

Whole-hearted commitment
Finally, young reporters Caroline Hansson, Victoria Engström and Pernilla Svensson from Skåne had the chance to report from COP15 during the special Youth Day at the climate change conference in Copenhagen. Pernilla summed up her day at COP15 with a word that also sums up the Young Reporters project: commitment!