European Union Policies

The decision for me as a marketing student to do the minor European Union Policies was a good decision. It is something different and renewing after three years of only writing marketingplans and doing market research. It brings more variation to my education and it woke up my interest for the European Union.
The minor deals with the history en development of the European Union, from back in the 50’s till now. The institutional, political, economic and legal aspects of the European integration are paid attention to in this minor. So, just like in the European union, the minor exist out of a three pillar structure: European law, European economics and European institutions. All the aspects from the minor are also subjects of the tasks we have to do every week and in the five projects we had to make.

The teaching system used in this minor is the same I had in my first year of CE, namely problem based learning. Every week we got a task that we had to read at home individually and then discussed in class, with a chairman and an assistant. Discussing the task is done by the seven step model: clarify terms, define the problem, brainstorm, analysis and discussion, formulate learning goals, self-study and reporting/evaluation. The answers to the learning goals are to be found in the books but we also get lectures about law, economics and finance. Than the next week we meet again in class and do step 7, before we start with the new task. After discussing the answers to the learning goals, we always get an evaluation lecture where everything is explained once again about the subject the task was about. This is so we don’t miss anything for our exams. I really like this teaching system because it forces me to make the tasks. These tasks do also appear in the exams, so if you made every task you don’t have to study that much anymore.

Next to these tasks we also have to do several projects towards the different aspects of European integration. We had to make 5 projects, with different groups. I like this, because you can work with different people. Some of the projects weren’t very clear, so it took some time before we figured out what exactly to do. We also had to write a individual paper. We got a list of topics were we had to choose one of. I chose the topic equal treatment between men and women.

We also had to improve on our negotiating, debating and ethic skills. We did three weeks of negotiating, were we first learned how to do it. After that some of us, including me, could show their skills in front of class. In ethic lessons we learned about ethics in business in the different countries in the European Union and in debating we were able to show our debating skills.

After the first part of the minor we went on a study trip to Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxemburg to visit some of the European institutions. We went to the commission, the parliament, court of human rights, the committee of regions, house of provinces and some other institutions. It was a very useful trip where I have learned a lot, but also had much fun.

I didn’t regret my choice of doing the minor European Union Policies and I would really recommend it to other students who have to chose a minor. Of course not everything was that clear all the time, but what I have learned was very usefull and I am really considering of working in Brussels when I am done with my study.

Governments should interfere in the credit crisis

As a consequence of the subprime mortgage crisis, a variety of government bailouts were implemented to stabilize the financial system during late 2007 and early 2008. Governments intervened in the United States and United Kingdom and several other Western European countries, such as Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.

Some Facts
The dutch government is interfering in the credit crunch, both for people as business. They do that on several aspects:

Employment: Temporary arrangements for reduced working hours, under which employees can apply for unemployment benefit on a temporary basis; Regional mobility centers to help people move on from one job to another; Accelerating the development of infrastructure projects, as for example the new Delta Works project.
Preventing bankruptcy: In October 2008 the Netherlands raised its guarantee on savings to 100,000 euro; Where necessary the Netherlands will strengthen the balance sheets of generally healthy financial institutions by injecting capital. 20 billion euro has been made immediately available for this purpose.
Government interference by loans: The government is prepared, subject to conditions, to secure loans extended between banks and by institutional investors to banks. This is intended to get credit flowing between financial institutions again. The government anticipates that the State may have to guarantee a total of 200 billion euro worth of loans; Swifter payment of bills by public authorities. This should chiefly benefit small and medium-sized enterprises.

I think that it is necessary for the government to interfere in the credit crisis. On the first place the government is trying to limit the unemployment which will arise in a credit crisis. By interfering in this, people and companies -on the short term- benefit from it.
If the government wouldn’t have interfered, the credit markets would have collapsed. This would result in a breakdown of the financial systems. Government intervention was needed to save credit market on the short term. Re-regulation of financial market is needed to promote responsible behavior in order to prevent stuff like this from happening again.
The key is to avoid a spiral downward and the easiest way for government to do this is to increase spending, or temporarily induce more private sector spending.

The government caused the credit crunch by approving loans, so they can partly held responsible for it. They have to solve the problem and that’s what they are doing right now. So therefore they should interfere in the credit crisis to prevent us from getting in to a crisis like in the 30’s or 80’s.