EYP-Europolis Belgium

EYP National Selection Conference

Each year at least one national session is organised by every national committee of the EYP. In Belgium there is an annual national session as well, of which the General Assembly takes place at the European Parliament in Brussels. This session is held with the purpose of selecting the two school delegations which will be representing Belgium at two International Sessions of the European Youth Parliament. Additionally, three other schools are often sent to International Forums.

As it goes for the Europolis sessions, the pupils, divided in their school delegations, get a committee and a matching topic assigned. They will start working on this to finally come to a resolution which they will be defending during General Assembly against the other school delegations. The session itself lasts three days and takes place every year in early March. On average there are about one hundred students from the fifth grade participating.

Throughout those three days the participants are given a programme to complete, from teambuilding to General Assembly (c.f. What makes a session). On Friday, the session is closed with a panel debate with Members of the European Parliament. As our sessions take place at the European Parliament in Brussels, our national MEPs are always enthusiastic to debate together with the delegations. The subject of this debate is always a highly topical issue. The topic for 2011 was for example: "Steps after Cancun: How should Europe approach the UN Conference on climate in Durban 2011?" Hence why participants start working on this issue together on Wednesday afternoon to work towards a more in depth understanding of the topic and exchange ideas to bring the debate to a higher level.

In 2011, we were able to welcome the following politicians during our sessions: Ivo Belet (MEP - EPP), Isabelle Durant (Vice-President European Parliament / MEP - Greens/EPA), Saïd El Khadraoui (MEP - S&D), Bart Staes (MEP - Greens/EPA), Dirk Sterckx (MEP – ALDE) and others.

An international jury, which includes one Belgian teacher, is charged with the task of assessing the participants during and after the debates on their different skills, such as: constructive attitude, debating skills, linguistic skills… At the end of the session, on Friday afternoon, the Chairman of the jury announces the selected school delegations that will be representing Belgium at international events of the European Youth Parliament.

Preliminary programme

The following example programme is based on the programme of the 17th Belgian National Selection Conference (2011), and outlines the course of the session. Exact times and detailed content of the programme vary from session to session.

¹ During this activity a break of aproximately 15 minutes is foreseen.