European Union

Dear Delegates,

Geraldine Jowett

It is with genuine pleasure that I welcome you to the European Union Committee at the 58th session of the Harvard National Model United Nations conference! My name is Geraldine, and in a nutshell I am sophomore in the College who is half French, half British but born and raised in Germany and lived in Spain. No hard feelings if you don’t remember that, but needless to say Europe holds a special place in my heart, and so it is with great excitement that I look forward to the opinions and ideas that you will bring to this intercultural conference. Outside of the MUN world I am a Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology concentrator, also active in the field of Mind, Brain and Behavior, and I enjoy doing sports, travelling, procrastinating and feverishly trying to make the most of all the different things Harvard has to offer. Inside the MUN world I am honored to be your committee director for HNMUN 2012!

We are lucky that our committee is of a more moderate size, with only roughly 50 delegates, as this will allow for more intimate forum for debate, and every delegate will have ample time and space to substantially contribute. I believe the European Union’s committee offers a lot of extremely rewarding topics, which are especially relevant both within the Union itself and for its role on the global playing field. These range from internal issues such as the different standards and regulations of education to external topics of foreign policy and security. During this time of turmoil in the Middle East for instance, members of the Union have revealed many different approaches and attitudes, which begs the question of how united the face of Europe is to the world, and whether any changes can or should be expected in the near future.

If you have an intrigue for international affairs and a genuine curiosity to learn about the work and politics of the EU, I wholeheartedly encourage you to join the EU committee of HNMUN 2012. I look forward to helping you in your preparation and please by all means contact me with any and all questions or doubts you may have while preparing for the conference. I really can’t wait to meet you all, consider yourself warmly welcomed to the European Union committee!

Best Regards,

Geraldine Jowett

Director, European Union

Harvard National Model United Nations 2012

Topic Area A: Common Foreign and Security Policy

Although the European Union is not a nation state, its Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) pledges to cooperate with its allies and intervene as an international actor on issues that range from advancement of human rights to the fight against international crime. Thus, European Union member nations seemingly share multiple foreign policy goals. However, no two states share identical alliances or interests; therefore, conflicts and discrepancies seem unavoidable, as many current events such as Denmark’s re-imposition of border constraints demonstrate. Do European Union States need to align their foreign policies to become a unitary player on the global playing field and are there some opinions and courses of action that all countries should be required to subscribe to? Or is the current state of some common policies and broad independence still appropriate and worthy of being reinforced, as the internal differences are part of what makes the European Union unique in the world?

Topic Area B: Immigration and Asylum Policy

While migration within the EU has been largely addressed through the Schengen Agreement, the issue remains as to the case of non-EU member state nationals who enter the EU to seek a job. Coming from  very diverse regions and backgrounds, these peoples are accused of taking jobs away from the “native” Europeans, as well as threatening the traditional and Christian heritage that exists in EU states. A parallel problem is that of asylum-seekers: there are people escaping discrimination and persecution in their native countries and seeking a safe place to live. EU and international convention enshrine their rights, but they are sometimes also caught in the measures which address immigration, preventing them from being able to apply for asylum in an EU state. How should the Union address the problem of immigrants? Should it aim for better integration measures and more openness, or towards a closure of its external borders and control of its internal populations? Should it aim to hold the rights of refugees and asylum-seekers above all domestic interests, or are national and EU norms to precede these peoples’ rights? These are all issues you will have to address during the next EU committee.