Who wants to be a European?

From 1st January until 30th June 2007, Germany was holding the presidency of the European Union. Competition participants were encouraged to imagine they were an advisor to Chancellor Angela Merkel. They were in the hot seat as she needed their advice on the main tasks set for the German EU presidency:

• What is the future of the Constitution?
• How to secure energy supplies for generations to come?
• How to reduce bureaucracy within the EU institutions?

Participants had to write a letter for Chancellor Merkel and let her know their views on the above topics. Alternatively, if there is another question they think should be on the EU agenda they could provide details for the Chancellor.

So, what’s your final answer?

Submissions: Entries can be submitted either in English or in German and should be of 700-1000 words.

Deadline: Monday 16 April 2007

Eligibility: All undergraduate and postgraduate students registered for a Bachelors/Masters/PhD degree at a UK university, except German nationals, are eligible. The competition is open to students of all subject areas and not restricted to students of German.

Jury: The best contributions will be chosen by a German-British panel in mid-May 2007. The jury will judge the entries on the following main criteria: originality, insight, presentation.

Awards: Prizes are awarded in 4 categories (English/German/UG/PG)

Prize-giving 18 June 2007

The response we received was fantastic! More than 60 undergraduate and postgraduate students from UK universities took up the challenge of advising Chancellor Angela Merkel on the EU-Presidency. To our great pleasure, a third of the participants faced a double challenge by writing their briefs in German.

All the essays we received showed great insight into the current issues of the EU and were of an exceedingly high standard. The approaches to answering the question ranged from a variety of well-informed, analytical pieces to more personal views on Europe, as well as a few satirical responses. The jury, six British-German representatives from media and academia, had a hard time choosing the prize-winners.

HE Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger and the Director of the DAAD London, Antje Schlamm, were delighted to welcome the prize-winners on Monday, 18^th June, at the German Embassy to hand out the awards personally. This was a great opportunity also to meet the jury, talk to the other prize-winners, and make further contact with the German Embassy and the DAAD. Last but not least we would like to say thank you to all the participants of the competition for their enthusiasm and high-quality submissions. We thoroughly enjoyed reading all of them!