Imagine travelling across Europe for one month by train to talk to people, and find out young people’s vision of Europe. It's not as impossible as it sounds. Last December six people travelled the old continent to meet students and young people and discuss their thoughts on the future of Europe, on topics such as politics, education and sustainability. The project Europe on Track was created by AEGEE-Europe (European Students' Forum) and sent out two teams of young people (the Red Team and the Blue team) to travel over 9000km in 27 days. The Red Team was travelling mostly through Western Europe, while the Blue Team was travelling towards the East all the way from Brussels to Istanbul. E&M interviewed Mathieu Soete, member of the Blue Team and experienced youth activist in AEGEE, to get an insider view of this adventure.

Photo: AEGEE Europe

Mathieu Soete, 26, tells us about his adventure

E&M: Mathieu, what motivated you to spend one month travelling across Europe by train?

MS: There are a lot of moments where you can talk with people in certain environments like the one that exists in a European youth organisation such as AEGEE, but there's never enough time and you're always in a sort of "European bubble", where you don't meet with people in their own realities. You get to learn much more about people when you go out to meet them. This project had two aspects: travelling and discussing. For me it was not the travelling that attracted me, it was not to see that part of Europe that I decided to go to, but it was because I thought with my prior experience I really had an idea of the topics discussed and could get into some great discussions. Visiting people, finding people, and giving them the opportunity to talk, not only to us but to everyone who is listening – this was my main motivation.

E&M: What was the main idea behind the Europe on Track project? And by the end of it all, do you feel that you've reached your goal?

MS: The main idea of the project was to link young people in Europe with European policy-makers in Brussels, to give them the possibility to speak up and reach "Brussels". We'll see how many policy-makers we can reach in the end. There is a real need for them to get to know the opinions of young people, more than they can learn from surveys or opinion polls. In that respect we have succeeded in collecting a good number of stories of people on their experience with (non-formal) education, politics and sustainability, what is working, what is not working. What I really wanted to do was to go ahead with an open mind and gather the real impressions of people, not just steer them towards what we already believe in, but rather record what people are really thinking. I think we've managed to do this.

The recent wave of inter-linked protests in many countries, the financial crisis and growing concerns over immigration make it necessary to look at events not only from a national angle but also to analyse them as they happen, taking their transnational dimension into account. However, what may seem to be a new development is rather the return of an insight that has been forgotten. Join us as an editor at E&M and help us move this dimension into the focus again.

Recently I read the Count of Monte Christo and was astonished by Dumas' portrait of a common European space in the first half of the 19th century. In this story, after escaping prison, the Count of Monte Christo decides to take revenge on those who are responsible for his 14-year long sentence. To pursue this revenge, he moves to Paris with Haydée, the daughter of the Emperor Ali Pascha, where he introduces himself sometimes as an Italian priest, sometimes as an English banker; he works together with a group of organised criminals from Rome as well as with his former fiancée, the Catalan Mercedes. Monte Christo's revenge is eventually successful because of his ability to gather information and to bring together people and stories from different places. Reading this classic novel, it became vivid to me again that a common European space is not a new concept but rather an old reality that, as in Monte Christo's story, can be found by following traces which are sometimes bloody or smelly, sometimes beautifully hummed or stunningly narrated. In Dumas' story, we participate in the hero's adventures, move with him from one place to another which is seemingly unconnected, only to find out that if we follow him off the main road and step into a yard behind a small house in a side street, we find a crucial connection; even more, this connection becomes obvious to us and we cannot understand how we didn't perceive the trace that he was following all along. As in the story, ties, connections and traces in the European space are often hidden; they have been crossed out by borders, painted over with the blood spilled in wars but also banned from our perception because of democratic institutions and constitutions which like strong lights directed at our eyes blind us to what is further away. As the example of Dumas' hero shows, however, these hidden traces and ties might matter more than we are inclined to think.

In March, E&M wrote an open letter to the Director General for Enlargement, protesting against an official promotional video which was supposed to encourage young people to support EU enlargement. We wrote the letter together with www.die-euros.de out of a sense of embarrassment: we felt that the video underlined racial stereotypes and implied that all threats to European unity come from the outside. The DG Enlargement said (and still says) that the video was meant to communicate with young people who don't already know a lot about the EU, and who will recognise and respond to references to video games and martial arts films.

You can read the response we received from Director General for Enlargement, Stefano Sannino, here. 

So what should the DG Enlargement have spent its money on, instead of a glossy martial arts video? In his response, Mr Sannino invited us to give him our suggestions, saying: "tell us what you would like to know about EU enlargement and how you would like to receive the information. We will be happy to discuss your ideas together with you."

E&M Magazine is not affiliated with the European Commission, and nor is it our job to help the Commission with PR. But we asked our authors what they would have liked to see rather than the triumph of twelve identical women in yellow leotards. Here are a few of their ideas.

1. no need to bring a passport

For most of us, EU-membership does not mean the ability to defeat aggressive samurai-wielding men. It has concrete, everyday benefits, and that's what we want to hear more about. Currently, Ukrainians often have to wait hours before crossing the Polish border, for example. Why not create videos showing how easy it is to cross borders within the EU, or how consumer law helps keep trade secure and fair? A video could follow a group of young people interrailing around Europe, or going off to study in other European countries.

2. Tell us a true story

How have real young people benefited from the Common Agricultural Policy (even if they don't know it?) How have individuals been affected by consumer law or EU funding for local development? We'd like to hear some true stories. The American project StoryCorps has been collecting recordings of real life stories for years - the format is generally an interview in which people ask each other about their experiences. Why not ask a young person from a candidate country to interview someone from a member country about their everyday life, and how it has changed since their country joined the EU? Animated videos of interviews could be more fun to watch than classic head-shots.

The recent "Science: It's a Girl Thing" campaign by the Directorate General for Research and Innovation has shown that true stories work best: while the barely-relevant video of three girls dancing around in high heels created so much outrage that it had to be withdrawn, the interviews with role model scientists are a great way for young women to find out what scientists actually do all day and what a lab looks like!

... and ride for your rights! If you loved your Erasmus year and - like Umberto Eco - think experiences like that have potential to create a European identity, here's a fun way to speak out about issues of student mobility while getting a good workout at the same time! E&M asked Julian Walkowiak from Ride for your Rights! why we should go out and bike around Europe, be it from Łódź to Katowice or from Tbilisi to Anaklia.

E&M: What is Ride for your rights! all about?

JW: Ride for your rights! is a project led by Campus Europae and the Erasmus Student Network. Young people take their bikes and cycle across European countries in order to raise awareness about obstacles to student mobility and at the same time promote such opportunities to students and stakeholders.

E&M: Can you give an example of a tour you thought was especially fun?

JW: My personal favourite this year is the tour taking place in Georgia. Our team was absolutely thrilled when we found out that the idea of Ride for your Rights! travelled as far as Tbilisi. Students will cycle from Tbilisi to Anaklia and join the Georgian International Forum of Student Unions.

E&M: And what else are you planning this year?

JW: 2012 is a very symbolic year, since we are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the ERASMUS programme. At the same time we're debating and preparing the upcoming European programmes 2014 - 2020, such as the "Erasmus for All" programme. It will be an opportunity for the riders and partner organisations of the project to voice their opinions about the future of the Erasmus programme.