I didn't even get close to them. They ran away as soon as I took my voicerecorder and paper with questions. MEPs on vote-mission, hurry, hurry, still 5 more meetings to attend. "Goodbye! Vote for me, please! Of course we will enlarge the budget for youth!

"...even thoough we didn't even mention the European Youth Program (Youth in Action) in our one-hour debate. Youth, Europe and Mobility, that must be Erasmus, right? " As far as I know Erasmus is the responsibility of Education... "We should bring European youth together every 6 months to debate about Europe and Youth, there should be a 'lobby'-group for youth" proposed one of them. The woman behind me was deeply shocked. "But... but...", she whispered to her neighbour, "that already exists!". After the MEP-debate I talked to the Swedish Mr. Nillson, expert for Youth and Education in the European Commission. He explained me about the European Youth Platform, the'Flemish Youth Council, the European Youth Council, Jan Van Hee (the Flemish watchdog of the Youth Programme), etc. In other words, many people in the Flemish Parliament hall (where the debate was organized) knew much more about the topic than the 6 MEPs reinventing the warm water in front of a noisier and noisier audience. Even Frieda Brepoels (New-Flemish Seperatists), Dirk Sterxk (Liberals) and last but not least one of the pary members of the Rightist Lijst De Decker called Kristof Van Der Cruysse, didn't take time to read through the Europe & Youth programme before attending the debate about this topic. Fortunately at least Said El Khadraoui (Socialists) and Bart Staes (Green!) contributed something to the debate by sharing the fact all new European resolution will have a special paragraph about the impact this resolution will have on Youth. The Rightists couldn't withstand the urge to ridulize it "Impact on Youth? Why not impact on seniors? Impact on the poor? Impact on disabled? Impact on animals?"

Maybe that was actually the only unintentionally wise thing said during the debate: "because yes, why not? "