Europe: But who is the Eurogeneration?

The birth of Europe as we know it today cannot be pinpointed at any one time ? step by step it has crept up on us starting in 1951 with the European Coal and Steel Community, moving through the 1960?s with the Merger Agreement, the 80?s with the Schengen Agreement, the fall of the Berlin wall and the Maastricht Treaty in the 90?s and the common currency at the turn of the century. Today Europe spreads across 27 Member States and 15 of these use a common currency, the Euro. But what has all this meant to those who have lived through the Unification of Europe first hand? What effect have those French, Spanish and German lessons had on Europe?s youth? What have those youngsters who set out to conquer the world armed with their lonely planet?s and interrail passes grown into? Cafebabel.com (the first ever multilingual, European multimedia information portal) has baptised them the ?Eurogeneration? : the Erasmus generation, the low cost flight generation, the generation that lives and moves freely across Europe, knowing no bounds.

But who are they really? And what better place to find out than cafebabel.com? Here are the profiles of Jean-Sébastien (France) and Natalia (Poland), portraits of two different Eurogeneration?s – the East and the West – who found common ground at the virtual European café?

Jean-Sébastien Lefebvre is 23 years old. He has been writing for Cafè Babel for a year and a half while at the same time, for the past six months, he has also been actively working on developing the European debate in France and the cafebabel.com network in Europe.

What is the Eurogeneration?
The Eurogeneration is the generation that thinks of Europe as their home, the generation that knows that even though there are differences between, say, Poland and France, we really have many more things in common. And also the generation that feels that even in this new globalized place that this world has become, Europe still has its place.

Do you feel part of it?
Yes, I fell part of it.

What made you join cafebabel.com?
I want to be a journalist and I have a Masters in European Studies (I studied in France and Poland), so Cafebabel sounded like an obvious place to start ? actually, Adriano Farano (one of the founders of cafebabel) was my teacher at the Université de Marne la Vallée, it was he who babelized me!

And what has made you stick with the project?
To be perfectly honest, I find the national debate so boring, always the same old thing! The European debate, on the other hand, can lead us to discover new perspectives, new solutions, new possibilities.

What is the thing you like most about Café Babel?
The multiculturalism. In our central European offices here in Paris there are six different nationalities. I also like being part of the will to create a European public opinion.

What is the thing you like least or would like to change?
I wouldn?t anything in cafebabel! But I would like to help cafebabel become stronger, to bring in more money and develop the network and the local teams. It would be great to see a cafebabel office in every European member state with paid staff!

What are the most challenging and satisfying aspects of your work at Café Babel?
As I am French, I think it would be: showing the reality about what the European Union is. You see, in France, people see the European Union as of it were a bad thing, as if it worked against them.

How many languages do you speak? Are you planning on learning any more?
I'm speak French and English. And I'm learning polish (quite hard!).

According to you what is the biggest challenge facing European youth today?
To create political union in the European Union. And to do that, we need European medias!

• More info: http://paris.cafebabel.com

Natalia Sosin was in charge of setting up cafebabel in Warsaw, Poland. She works for cafebabel full time editing the Polish page and coordinating the local teams despite this, she is an a-typical cafebabelian. Why? Because she never went on an Erasmus?

What interested you most about cafebabel?
Multilingualism, the possibility of creating something from the beginning, the team of young people, the possibility of travelling around Europe, taking pictures and writing about European cities. I don?t think I?d have had these opportunities if I worked for a national Polish newspaper!

What languages do you speak?
Polish, English and French. I learned them all at school but the opportunity of speaking to tourists visiting Poland also really helped me.

Did you go on an Erasmus?
No! I think I am the only one in the whole of cafebabel that hasn?t!

But you founded cafebabel?s first Polish offices two and a half years ago. What were the greatest challenges you had to face?
Here in Poland the democracy is very young so it is hard to find people willing to be volunteers; there are not many associations, it is not fashionable to volunteer and so it was a real challenge to find people who were able to do translations professionally and for free. Its hard to make people understand that their work is worth something even though they are not being paid, and even harder to convince other magazines that something that works on a voluntary basis can be as professional as any other media.

Give me the identikit of an average Polish cafebabel reader.
Most are young university students who have been abroad, or who have just come back from their Erasmus. Then we also have another group who are 30 or 35 who are well educated and interested in foreign affairs.

Has European expansion affected cafebabel?
Yes. We have more and more local teams, like a team in Hungary that writes about the Sziget festival every year, and other groups who write about things that wouldn?t make it into the media otherwise. The biggest impact is that we cover more diverse subjects.

What would you say is the biggest challenge for young European people?
Unemployment. Nowadays young people are better educated and have higher expectations than their parents, they feel that the world is their oyster, and yet what is on offer is disappointing. The most that you can hope for at first is a position as a stagier. Especially here in Poland there is a ?brain drain?: there are many young people who would rather go and work in a pub in London than stay here and try their luck.

Were you never tempted to go abroad and work?
Yes, but in the end I decided to stay here and try and be someone in Warsaw than be a nobody in London!

Is there anything you don?t like about cafebabel?
Well, I think it would have to be the way Eastern Europe is sometimes depicted ? and this isn?t only within cafebabel but generally in Western Europe ? as the far-far East. Often the French, Italians or Spanish people seem to still think of us as if we were some far-Eastern country where you can live on 300 euros a month! The reality is obviously very different and I sometime wish that this message could be put across. But I must add that this is changing. Another thing that is complicated in cafebabel is communication ? coordinating 500 volunteers and 9 editors by email is pretty hard!