Education | Model European Union brings together 56 students from six local universities

Fifty-six students from six tertiary institutions in Macau participated over the weekend at the fourth edition of the Macau Model European Union (EU). Participants – undergraduate and postgraduate students – were from nine different nationalities. The event took place at University of Macau’s (UM) Senate Room.

The Model EU is an educational simulation program in which participants recreate the political decision-making of a European council, at the level of heads of state and government, to learn about European politics and current issues. This year’s topic was the exit of the United Kingdom from the EU.

According to a statement issued yesterday by the European Union Academic Program in Macau (EUAP-M), “participants displayed a deep understanding of the functioning of the EU as well as of the positions of the countries they were representing. At the end of the two-days of discussion, students reached a consensus on a set of conclusions, which included, among others, a recall that the free movement of goods, services, persons and capital are necessary preconditions for the European Single Market, and a proposal for the establishment of a transition period of a minimum of three years after the conclusion of the negotiations between the EU and the United Kingdom.”

The three winners (the team of two delegates from Greece as well as the best individual participant, a student representing Hungary) were awarded free study missions to Europe, funded by EUAP-M, which will take place next summer. They were, respectively, He Wenting and Fu Qiuming (UM) and Evelin Rizzo (from Italy and Maastricht University, who is currently at the UM under an exchange program). Runner-ups included the teams representing Italy (Lin Sijie and Xiao Shiling, UM) and Latvia (Esther Li and Li Xinwei, UM). Runner-ups will be awarded a cash prize of MOP1,000 each.

The runner-ups of the individual participants’ competition were Dorji Wangchuk (a national from Bhutan, delegate from the Netherlands, UM), and Yao Fangyuan (representing Portugal, UM), who won a cash prize of MOP1,000 each. The best position paper of the 28 member-states presented at the summit was awarded to the team representing Romania (Hoi Keng Ieong and Haiyu Wang, UM). They won a cash prize of MOP 3,000.

The 56 participants, from a total of 120 applicants, came from the UM, City University of Macau, Institute for Tourism Studies, Macau Polytechnic Institute, Macau University of Science and Technology, and University of Saint Joseph.

The event was co-organized by the EUAP-M and the Youth Association of International Affairs (YAIA) of the UM, and held with the support of the Institute of European Studies of Macau (IEEM), the Department of Government and Public Administration, Faculty of Social Sciences, UM, as well as the Faculty of Law, UM.

Established in 2012, the EUAP-
M is a partnership between the UM and the IEEM, co-financed by the European Union. It aims to bring the EU to the closer attention of the Macau’s general public and, in particular, students of all levels.