Evaluation of the Working Group External Economic Relations

Chairing a Working Group in the European Convention Simulation was a valuable experience. It presented a great opportunity to learn about the work of the European Convention and its meaning for the future of Europe. But it also showed how difficult it can sometimes be to unite opposing views into a common solution.

The method chosen (simulating firstly the working groups and afterwards the plenary sessions) was in my opinion very suitable for the simulation game. It gave the participants the possibility to work in smaller groups, thus offering everybody a chance to express their opinions. Although in some way the pressure to act is bigger in a smaller group, on the other hand it presents a considerable chance for succeeding in implementing own ideas in the final report or resolution. If the simulation had covered only the plenary part of the Convention, some delegates would not have participated as actively as they did.

The main problem that the participants faced during the game was in my opinion the lack of time to prepare thoroughly for their roles. Therefore some of the delegates did not really succeed to follow the interests of their roles, but rather expressed their own opinions about the topics in question. This fact sometimes caused a general inequality of the represented interests. Therefore I think that it would have been better if all participants had received their roles some days in advance.

In the Working group External Economic Relations there were not any dominant delegates, but it could nevertheless be seen that most of the time one and the same people participated in the debates. It is very interesting that the only point, where the group was not able to reach consensus, was the question of representation of EU in the G-8 meetings. If we take into account that in the field of IMF and WTO considerable changes could be introduced, it is surprising that the delegates were not able to agree on the cooperation in an international organization of an informal nature, that does not take any binding decisions.  We can explain this partly by the sequence of the topics on the agenda. During the discussion about the first agenda item the participants were starting to understand the methods and procedures in a working group. This could be seen as a kind of preparatory phase. After the debate about the agenda item two started, they were already acquainted with the procedures and were more willing to participate. In that way some of them they were trying to implement their positions at any cost. The result was that no consensus could be reached on the question of G-8 representation. During the discussion of the third item, most of the delegates were too tired to fully participate in the debate. That is why far reaching changes were accepted without any delegation trying to prevent them. Some participants also had problems to fully participate in the debates, because they did not have enough self-confidence to express their opinions. This was in my opinion mainly due to the complexity of the problems discussed. Connected with these problems was also the selection of the rapporteur. Because there were not any candidates the Chairman had to choose someone to take this role. I decided to choose a very capable rapporteur, which proved to have some advantages but also some drawbacks. In this way it was easier for the Chairman to prepare a good report and include all the aspects that were expressed during the debates. On the other hand in this way a valuable member of the group was lost, because he did not have the possibility to fully participate in the debates. It might have been better if somebody else had been chosen, because the current rapporteur could, due to his abilities, contribute considerably to the quality of the debates.

Another problem of the game was the time schedule of the simulation, particularly of the plenary session. The intervals between each Working Group presentation were too long and a lot of participants were too tired to fully participate. This fact could be seen in the number of delegates attending the last part of the plenary that dropped considerably comparing to the beginning of the session. In this way the last group (External Economic Relations) did not have a chance to start a debate among the participants as the previous two.

In spite of some problems, the general impression of the Simulation game was excellent. It proved a great success, because it offered the students a possibility to feel how the future of Europe will be shaped.