Juha-Pekka Nurvala

 
Centre of European Studies (CES), organised a panel discussion on the future of the Euro in the EPP Congress in Marseilles. Prime Minister of Finland, former YouthEPP board member, Jyrki Katainen and Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban were both talking about the importance of saving the Euro and solidarity. As the representative of the YouthEPP I had to ask a question about intergenerational justice and the then upcoming European Council meeting. Since I'm studying in the UK, and as you all must know, the UK has imposed some heavy austerity measures, and rightly so bearing in mind that their deficit was close to Greece's deficit, well over 10%. Large budget cuts were imposed on all Government Departments, usually between 10-20% but the cuts on Higher Education were quite considerably higher, around 40%. This led to the fact that, tuition fees in British Universities will go up from the current £3400 up to £9000 in the autumn of 2012. When solidarity is mentioned, we should not only think about solidarity between citizens or people within the EU but solidarity and justice between generations.