On Saturday, 30 May, the European Democrat Students held its last Council Meeting of the Working Year 2019/2020 online for the first time. 50 participants from 32 European Countries were able to actively discuss and present motions on the current pandemic and also on topics related to the European Crisis recovery for the next months. As the official student association of the European People’s Party, these proposals will be passed on to the EPP to develop student-centred policies for the years.

EDS called for the optimal protection of students throughout the EU and especially for those currently enrolled in Erasmus programmes, highlighted the need of coordinated digitalisation and pointed out the economic impact of the crisis on young people for future years. Furthermore, EDS lead the fight against the rise of domestic violence during quarantine, stood its ground for the protection of the rule of law during the pandemic and discussed relocation of manufacturing industries.

On Thursday, in the run up of the Council Meeting, two Webinars were organised with high profile speakers. For these Webinars, EDS invited high profile speakers with experience in the economic policy making to share the knowledge with our network of students  coming from various European Universities.

The EDS Chairman Carlo Giacomo Angrisano Girauta hosted the Minister for Foreign and European Affairs of Croatia, Gordan Grlić-Radman, for the first Webinar and discussed the “Lessons from Covid-19 Crisis Management”. Later in the afternoon, the theme of Economic Reconstruction of Europe after Covid-19” was discussed with Alex Stubb, Former Prime Minister of Finland, Ivan Pilip, former Minister of Finance and Education of the Czech Republic, and Ivan Miklos, former Deputy Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, four EDS policy papers were submitted to the EPP Dispatch. The papers submitted to the EPP called for the optimal protection of students throughout the EU and especially for those currently enrolled in Erasmus programmes. EDS  also highlighted the need of coordinated digitalisation and pointed out the economic impact of the crisis on young people for future years. Furthermore, EDS lead the fight against the rise of domestic violence during quarantine, stood its ground for the protection of the  rule of law during the pandemic and discussed relocation of manufacturing industries.