ESU’s Board gives green light to 11 external motions
TALLINN – During the 60th Board Meeting of the European Students’ Union (ESU) in Tallinn, several external motions on burning issues in higher education were adopted by the representatives from national students’ unions from all over Europe. The delegates furthermore criticised the slow progress of the Bologna Process in a statement adopted during the event which took place from 5 to 7 May.
They also elected their Executive Committee (EC) for the upcoming year. ESU is the umbrella organisation of 45 national unions of students from 38 European countries. Allan Päll, currently ESU’s Vice-Chair will take over the reins from Bert Vandenkendelaere on 1 July. The Lithuanian Karina Ufert has been elected as ESU’s Vice-Chairperson. Other members of the EC 2011 are Nevena Vuksanovic from Serbia, Rok Primozic from Slovenia and Kaloyan Kostadinov from Bulgaria. Magnus Malnes (Norway), Rahel Siegrist (Switzerland), Laura Howell (UK) and Fernando Miguel Galán Palomares (Spain) got a seat in the Academic Affairs Committee 2011. The Portuguese Luis Coelho will take place in the Committee for Internal Development.
Motions
A motion on fighting the budget cuts in the Netherlands passed the vote during the meeting, but as well motions on the social dimension of students’ participation and the higher education developments in Hungary were adopted. Other motions that got the support from the Board concerned the situation of students in Belarus, in Ukraine, the problems with EU and international internships and the issue of higher education financing and the IMF.
As well, the students adopted the so called ‘Tallinn declaration’ addressing G20 university leaders, who had their meeting last week, in which they asked for a sustainable development of higher education. On top of that, the students gave the green light to an external motion on the Euro-Mediterranean mobility program and expressed their support to students in Maghreb and Middle East countries. Lastly they joined their Icelandic member union SHI in its demand to raise the basic support rate of the Icelandic government and shared the concerns of its Hungarian member union HOOK on economical and higher educational reforms in Hungary in another motion. All external motions can be downloaded here: http://esu-online.org/documents/motions/
Bologna Statement
Furthermore, ESU’s Board adopted a statement on the Bologna Process towards 2012 in which they say the following: “The Bologna Process, despite the effervescence of reforms and changes it has inspired, is being confronted with several problems in bringing its goals full circle.” The students say to see a clear trend in increasing lack of commitment to fulfilling ‘even the simplest Bologna goals’. The statement can be downloaded here: http://esu-online.org/documents/statements/
