To celebrate the 50th Birthday of the Treaty of Rome in the Netherlands, we had the Royal Celebration in what we call the RIDDERZAAL (where our Queen has her annual speech of government and Crown).
Two of my pupils, from the Visser 't Hooft Lyceum in Leiden, were invited to attend the celebration with me, their teacher and Spring Day Advisor for the Netherlands, which was shown in a live report on our national television http://www.nos.nl/nosjournaal/dossiers/europa_50_jaar/europa_50_jaar.html
The celebration was meant especially for young people, and included a fashion show, small films on all the EU countries and the perspective of the people on the European Union. We watched a speech by our Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende and Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Verhagen. Our Queen Beatrix and her son Prince Constantijn attended. I conversed with our Prince for 10 minutes after the event. We discussed Malta and the challenge Malta is facing with the immigrants. We talked about living in Brussels, as he does, working for a UK company and social structures and the work that still needs to be done in the EU to facilitate this EU way of living. During the celebration 2 artists did a lovely sketch on the throw-away lighters and made slightly fun of it. A 92 year old man that was there when Jean Monnet signed the Treaty of Rome was there and our whole Cabinet, all Ministers, everybody that has anything to do with EU and Europe in the Netherlands.
The report is in Dutch, but you CAN watch the video. First our pupils could interview the EU Commissioner Mrs. Neelie Smit-Kroes and our Secretary of Foreign Affairs Frans Timmermans questions about what Europe meant for Youth and what our government did to improve that. The pupils joined the national press. They will write a report about it, although we were not allowed to take pictures. The three of us were really nervous about the whole event and very proud to have been allowed to attend it, as there were only 4 teachers present. We will publish the report on the springday website.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Mrs. Marleen Spierings
Teacher of European and International Orientation in the Netherlands
Further information, please mail to: sg@vhl.nl
http://www.vreemdetaal.nl/moodle
http://www.e-citizenship.org
http://www.vhl.nl
http://www.springday.nl
http://www.springday2007.net
