Green Paper Procedure

The Greenpaper: ‘’In what kind of Europe do I want to live in 25 years?’’

The European Commission works with a so called Greenpaper before they make any legislation. To explain this, here an example. The European Commission wants to make new legislation on river pollution in the river areas of Europe. Different stakeholders have different interest concerning this new legislation. For example chemical companies have different interests then Greenpeace or citizens who live near the rivers or polluted areas. Al the relevant stakeholders can give their input, opinion and expertise to the Commission. They take all this information into consideration before they write their legislation.

What we want to do as Model European Parliament is something similar. The only thing different is that not the Commission writes the Greenpaper, but that we do! Why? Because we believe in the future of Europe, and we believe that the future of Europe, the youth, has and needs something to say to policy-makers today!

In 2017 the Treaty of Maastricht exists 25 years. This treaty was the basis for the European Union as we know it today. In 2017 we as the MEP will not look behind the past 25 years, but ahead, the next 25 years. Therefore our central theme in the Greenpaper is:

‘’In what kind of Europe do I want to live in 25 years?’’

This question will be and is already answered by participants of the international BudaMEP conference in spring 2016, will be answered at the MEPNL conference this september, in the international conference in Copenhagen this autumn and also by the WEMEP conference of November! But also others who are interested can give their input, the idea is that the whole youth of Europe can give input to the MEP project and to final goal: the Youth Treaty 2017-2042, 25 years after Maastricht.

In this Youth Treaty we will gather all the data and differ the most important issues the youth raised for the future of Europe. These themes will we present in Brussels, with as many Members of European Parliament presented during the international MEP conference in the Netherlands, spring 2017.

But how will we do this? At this very moment we have developed an online tool in cooperation with Utrecht University. This tool can be filled in here: www.mepnl.eu/green-paper!