Young Smokers in Europe

In my group we talked about 15 year-olds in Europe who smoke every day. We found out that Bulgaria has more than 25% of teenagers who smoke every day. So we asked ourselves why are so much teenagers smoking and where do they get their cigarettes? 

We think that the laws aren’t strict enough or rather not in all countries in Europe. For example in Bulgaria you don’t need an ID, so everyone can buy a cigarette. That isn’t good because cigarettes aren’t healthy for teenagers and adults either. I’ve taken some notes how we can reduce the number of smokers; my first idea was to demand the identity card from everyone. This way the teens can’t get cigarettes anymore. 

The second idea was to sell the cigarettes at a higher price. This way some teenagers can’t buy them anymore because they haven’t enough money to get them every day and perhaps the adults won’t buy them as often as they have done before. 

And my third and last idea was to sell the cigarettes not at every petrol station and not in all discounters or supermarkets. For example; if every city got only 1 or 2 shops which sells cigarettes maybe the people think that it isn’t worth the trouble to drive so far.

I think if every country (no matter where) would introduced some of these ideas the number of smoking teenagers and smoking adults would decrease.

D. S. 9F2

Lösungsvorschläge gegen die Trennung von Eltern

In den vergangenen Jahren steigt die Zahl der getrennten Ehepaare in Deutschland immer weiter an. Dies ist besonders für die Kinder eine Belastung und eine unschöne Erfahrung. Doch was kann man dagegen tun?

 In Italien zum Beispiel ist die Zahl der Kinder die mit beiden Elternteilen zusammen leben noch viel höher als hierzulande, denn nur wenige Paare lassen sich dort scheiden. Also, wie könnte man den Leuten hier in Deutschland oder auch in anderen Länderen helfen? 

Eine Möglichkeit wäre zum Beispiel die Eheberatung. Der Staat könnte mehr Einrichtungen für Partner oder Familien errichten lassen, um so die angespannten Situationen zu klären. So würden sich die Eltern weniger streiten und in den Sitzungen mit Therapeuten oder ähnlichen Leuten offen über ihre Probleme reden. Sie hätten nicht mehr so viele Komplikationen im Alltag und in der Beziehung und hätten so keinen bzw. weniger Gründe sich zu trennen. 

Eine zweite Möglichkeit wäre die Verkürzung der Arbeitszeiten oder die Änderung der Arbeitsplätze, denn viele Beziehungen scheitern an der Fernbeziehung. Zum Beispiel wenn der Partner in einer anderen Stadt arbeitet und so nur am Wochenende daheim sein kann. Würde man dies ändern, sodass die Arbeitgeber dafür sorgen, dass man nur in der eigenen Stadt einen Arbeitsplatz bekommt, so hätten die Paare mehr Zeit für einander und würden sich so nicht auseinanderleben. 

Würde man das alles ändern würde die Zahl der getrennten Paare vielleicht nicht mehr so stark weiter wachsen und es hätten nicht mehr so viele Kinder darunter zu leiden.

A-L. M. 9F2

Verbesserung der Sportlichkeit von Jugendlichen

Ich werde mich heute mit Sportaktivitäten von Jugendlichen befassen. Zur heutigen Zeit machen nur noch sehr wenige jugendliche Sport, mal abgesehen vom Schulsport. Mit meinen 3 folgenden Argumenten möchte ich Jugendliche dazu ermutigen mehr Sport in ihrer Freizeit zu leisten.

Beispielsweise Teamsport fördert das Zusammenarbeiten in der Schule in einzelnen Freundschaftsgruppen aber auch während der späteren Arbeitszeit. Außerdem schadet es nichts sich „fit“ zu halten.

Es ist auch gesund bzw. gut für den Körper viel Gemüse, Obst oder andere nährstoffreiche Produkte zu essen. Deswegen fände ich es auch gut, wenn man in Supermärkten viel mehr Bioprodukte verkauft werden würden und außerdem die Preise der Bioprodukte geringer werden. Dies hilft nämlich auch sehr zur Steigerung der Gesundheit.

Mein letztes Argument für eine gute Gesundheit wäre ein ausgewogener, regelmäßiger Schlaf. Durch einen guten Schlaf kann man ich deutlich gesunder fühlen, als wenn man jeden Tag nur 1-3 Stunden schläft. Deswegen finde ich es schlecht, wenn Menschen über die Nacht arbeiten müssen. Da es sehr schwer ist tagsüber zu schlafen und man seinen kompletten Schlafrhythmus verstellen muss. Wenn man dann beispielsweise mit 65 Jahren in Rente geht kann man, mindestens 3-4 Wochen, nachts nicht gut schlafen.

L.S. 9F2

Binge drinking teenagers

Today I will present you my suggestions about under-age drinking of alcohol.

If there are teenagers in a country who drink alcohol I would demand very hard laws. A good example for this is the USA. There you must be 21 years old to drink and buy alcohol. In Germany, however, you can be 16 and you go in a store and you are allowed to buy beer.

A thing which is also very important is that the seller has always to check the identification of the person who buys alcohol.

In our statistics you could see that the teenagers in Germany drink a lot more alcohol than the teenagers in the USA. Then they ought to clarify the things that can happen if you are intoxicated. For example they could once a week watch a video in the school where teenagers can see the consequences of drinking alcohol, e.g. they see how they are in this moment.

If you are a teenager you should have a mentor with whom you can anonymously speak about your problems. Then you don’t have to talk about those problems with your family. To talk about those with an external person is much easier than to talk with your father or your mother. This mentor should also be younger because if the teenager talks with the mentor, the teenager would then feel better because it is not like if they talked about alcohol with a person who is 20 years older than them.

Another suggestion is that the family knows what their child does. I don’t think they must control him or her but they must know who his friends are and so on. And they must love their child because the child needs this.

Those are my suggestions about teenagers that drink alcohol.

I hope I could help you with this.

N. M. 9F2

How can we stop the young peoples’ smoking problem in Europe?

First of all we have the question: Why do so many young people smoke?

The main problem exists in the social environment of young people. There’re too many adults who support them in getting cigarettes and other drugs. Very often young people have problems because of the peer pressure so the youth needs more security in their personal environment especially in their families. If parents told them more about bad effects smoking has and if they had more understanding for their children´s situation, there would be more trust between children and parents.

As we can see, it’s very important for adults to get more information about the smoking problems.  With this information, it´s easier for parents to teach their children about the danger of smoking. Very often adults simply ignore this problem, that’s one of the biggest mistake they can do.

Parents’ help, understanding and trust are the best way to protect young people from peer pressure!

Another big problem is that many young people don´t take the consequences of smoking seriously. It seems to be unreal and not authentic. It seems that they can´t imagine or just ignore the possibility of getting cancer. So we have to make them aware of the consequences and that they are realistic. in In most of the European countries there´re projects but they´re not really popular. Some cancer organizations offer young people to talk with victims of cancer especially lung cancer patients.  A governments’ research shows that the majority of students at schools who take part in those projects don’t smoke.  So it´s important to talk about the effects of smoking!

In poor countries like Bulgaria we can find the largest number of young smokers. Very often dealing with cigarettes and drugs is the main income in poor countries. The low number of jobs and education (schools, universities) are two of the reasons for this problematic fact. So first of all these countries need more education for example in schools. There´re already some voluntary projects from teachers, people working health centres and a lot of others. They go to these countries to teach and tell young people about smoking and its negative effects.

Sadly there´re lots of countries where smoking is an old tradition.  Here the most adults are smokers so they´re bad examples for children. If children see that everybody smokes, it´s not easy for them to see the danger of smoking. They take adults (especially their parents) as role models so if they smoke, they’ll also smoke.

If there were less adult smokers, there would also be less young smokers!

 L.B. 9F2

Die Einwanderung von armen EU-Bürgern in EU-Länder mit einem höheren Wohlstand ist schon seit vielen Jahren ein umstrittenes Thema. Dabei gibt es genügend Meinungen vieler nationaler und auch internationaler Politiker. Die einen sagen, dass jeder EU-Bürger nach einer Einwanderung einen gewissen Anspruch auf Sozialhilfen besitzen. Auf der anderen Seite gibt es Gegner, welche der Meinung sind, dass sich ein Einwanderer die bereits genannten Sozialhilfen zunächst verdienen muss bzw. lange genug im Land sein müssen, um diese einfordern zu können und einen Anspruch darauf zu haben. Diese Meinung vertritt auch der britische Premierminister Cameron. Genügend Argumente untermauern diese Maßnahmen untermauern.Das erste Argument auf dieser Seite ist, dass der Staat enorme Verluste macht,wenn er für jeden einzelnen Immigranten, welcher das Land betritt Sozialhilfen und sonstiges Sozialleistungen bereitstellen muss. Dies könnte erhebliche Probleme in der jeweiligen Staatskasse hervorrufen. Ein weiteres Argument ist, dass die Arbeitslosenrate des jeweiligen Staates eventuell stark erhöht werden könnte, da die meisten Immigranten aus ärmeren Verhältnissen nichts vorzuweisen haben, also ausreichend qualifiziert sind.

Ein Argument, welches gegen diese Maßnahmen spricht ist, dass es zwar nicht direkt aber dennoch indirekt eine Verletzung des Menschenrechts ist, da jeder Mensch das Recht auf Akzeptanz und Anerkennung besitzt und somit diese Rechte nicht berücksichtigt werden. Ein weiteres Argument ist, dass Immigranten eine gute Chance für einen Staat sind ,die Arbeitslosenrate zu verringern und offene Stellen auf dem Arbeitsmarkt zu füllen. Zu den Argumenten,welche gegen diese Maßnahmen

Abschließend lässt sich erkennen, dass es sowohl Argumente für als auch gegen diese Maßnahmen (von Cameron) gibt. Dies macht diesen Aspekt zu einer jahrelangen Problematik und es wird voraussichtlich noch einige Jahre dauern, bis die EU sich auf eine einheitliche Migrationspolitik geeinigt hat.

Ich bin der Meinung, dass Camerons Maßnahmen nicht ignoriert werden sollten, da durchaus die Tatsache besteht, dass einige Bürger aus Bulgarien oder Rumänien nur in das jeweilige Land reisen um ihren größtmöglichen Vorteil daraus zu ziehen. Diese Maßnahmen würden helfen dies zu unterbinden. Deshalb bin ich der Meinung, dass auch andere EU-Länder Großbritannien nachziehen und ähnliche Maßnahmen in Kraft treten lassen sollten. 

M. W. 

First we have to know what the problem is. In the UK, it is claimed, so many illegal immigrants are getting the services of the EU (Schengen Abkommen) but can't give anything back to they state. So they will produce large losses for the UK. To lower these problems, an option could be Cameron's immigration policy. He designed a bill to remove these people and stop them from using those services. It includes a measure to require private landlords to check the immigration status of tenants and they will get access to Bank accounts of people who don't have permission to be in the UK. The bill will also for temporary migrants, including students, who will pay a levy (200£) before they can use the taxpayer-founded National Health Service. This would improve the financial situation of the UK.

Those measures, however, would limit the concept of the four fundamental freedoms. One consequence would be that you can't travel from one into another country as easily as today and many students can't do a gap year or study abroad.

In my opinion this bill isn't a good idea for the EU, because I don't know whether I would study abroad. It's however an option for the future. The bill could shatter their dreams. Secondly I like travelling and taking vacations abroad because I think that you can relax there better than here. It isn't as nice to swim in the cold North Sea as in the warm sea in France.

Because of that I hope that Cameron's bill won't get real.

J. M.

David Cameron said the numbers of Romanians and Bulgarians arriving in the UK since the last work curbs were lifted had been at a reasonable level. The Prime Minister said the immigration bill contained sensible measures aimed at lowering annual net migration. The bill, he insisted, included important measures to ensure migrants had to pay to use the NHS and could not get council housing or defer appeals against deportation judgements if they were not entitled to be in the UK. The prime minister has also pointed out that future controls would stay in place until aspiring EU members reach an average income level much closer to that of the UK and other existing EU members.

In my opinion there is a problem, because you should look at it not only from that side but also from the other. It could be that immigrants are more likely to become unemployed or the exploit the state benefits but you must also consider that exactly these immigrants are potential young people, who are qualified workers.

To sum up, I think that we should give a chance to every immigrant. But if they violate the law or apply without reason (e.g. illness) for unemployment benefit or other benefits, they should have to leave Europe.

J. L.M.

Back then the EU was introduced to unite the nation states to one single unit to abolish borders between them. These borders affect the community 'EU' in many negative ways, so that we can count ourselves lucky. Nevertheless, many of us citizens and our politicians start thinking of abolishing EU law, including the 4 fundamental freedoms playing a subordinate role.

The fundamental freedoms, which consist of freedom of capital, goods, services and movement of people so seem to be violated by David Cameron, Prime Minister of the UK. In fact, he is about to introduce a bill which causes the temporary non-European migrants (as e.g. students) to pay a levy every year. Because half his countrymen don’t accept such a massive migration which they went through earlier, he's now applying a rougher approach. He himself is not the only head of state thinking this way. In Denmark they restricted the freedom of movement by stepping backwards and launching border controls which on one hand leads to more safety in the country but on the other doubts and people despairing at heavy traffic jams. Austria acts similarly to the UK concerning students, it demands equalization payments.

In my opinion, the migration policy in any way is a two-edged sword: Either there's a lack in skilled migrants, leading to labor shortfall or migrants gain the upper hand and your country is run over by them. In any case we need them, otherwise our country suffers from the ageing population. Using strict measures as Cameron does is not an option. We don't want the the 4 freedoms to be abolished. They are the base of the EU, without them the whole system wouldn’t make sense any more and our lives would change completely.

J. I.

Cameron's Bill

A lot of states in the EU got a severe immigration problem: too many people want to move to these countries. Often they don't have another choice. The Prime Minister of Great Britain, Cameron, tries to manage this problem by the implementation of a bill. But what exactly is Cameron's bill? Cameron wants to stop illegal immigrants from moving to the UK and using the national health care system without paying for this service. He wants to reduce the pull-factors. Temporary migrants, for example students who want to go to a university in the UK, would have to pay money for the national health care system, even if they don't use it. Another idea is to require private landlords to check the immigration status of tenants. He also wants to restrict the access to bank accounts for people who don't have a permission to be in the UK. There are positive and negative aspects of this bill. Some people think, Cameron's bill violate the Schengen Agreement. This bill would reduce illegal immigration for sure, but it would be a break the Schengen Agreement. It would violate three of the four fundamental freedoms.

Of course it would help Great Britain, because they wouldn't have to pay for the migrants, but it also works against the economy: If there aren't students from other countries who study and work in the UK, the system will collapse some day. There wouldn't be enough skilled employees any more. That would also have political consequences, because the other EU states wouldn't be amused about the behavior of the UK. In my opinion, the bill work as much against the Schengen Agreement as against the human rights of migrants. They would be limited in their personal freedom. We shouldn't forget, that nowadays, most migrants move to other country, because they have no other choice. They don't come to use health care systems, they come to work, to earn money for their families or just to stay alive, because there is war going on in their home country. Some of them faced ordeals, we can't even imagine. When they arrive the EU, they should be save.

Of course the UK and also the EU can't deal with so many migrants and we have to find a solution but I don't think, that breaking every rule and treating people like this, is the right way.

A. B.

Is Cameron’s immigration policy an option for the members of the Schengen/Maastricht Treaty?

Immigration is the movement of people into another country or region to which they are not native in order to settle there. There are economic and political reasons for people to immigrate to the European countries. They all hope for a better life.

The British government published an immigration bill to reduce and curb immigration to the U.K. They intend to require landlords to check the immigrations status of tenants and to restrict access to bank accounts for people who don’t have the permission to be in the U.K. Also, they propose to stop migrants using public services to which they are not entitled and they will make it easier to remove people who should not be there.

Introducing this bill, the British government intends to reduce the burden of public services. One of the negative consequences will be that the numbers of skilled labors and foreign students will be reduced, too.

In my opinion people who move to another country due to political reasons should be welcome and supported. People who moved to another country for economic reasons should work and pay for their social services. Especially in Germany the population is decreasing and we need skilled labor from other countries to be and stay competitive.

A. L.

The Schengen-Agreement and Maastricht Treaty create open barriers for the members of the European Union (EU) in terms of the freedom of movement of people. Especially the latter, the freedom of movement, is a very important point, because many immigrants use it to travel to a country or live there at times, however, sometimes without having an employment. They only live there because the state (e. g. Germany) offers benefits.

Of course you can't say that all of the immigrants use that way to live here, much of them come to another country because of a war in their own country for example and look directly for a job in one of the EU countries.To avoid those „bad“ - immigrants, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, is developing a new immigration policy:

The most important point of his new policy is the reduction of immigration. It's directed at immigrants who come without money to the United Kingdom. Cameron says that it's important that people got the right to travel and to work but those immigrants coming to the UK unwilling to work should not be payed social benefits. To prevent immigrants from coming, he wants to restrict the right of social benefits. In such a case he doesn't „wanna make excuses“, said Cameron.

A positive aspect of Cameron's policy is that the state can save much money for other purposes, because the country needn't pay money for immigrants who don't want to work and just want to get money from the state. This can also be a motivation for immigrants because they understand that they can only live in a state if they can find work there. Consequently, this also means that the country can save money and spend it on other purposes like social housing or something like that.

A negative point of the policy is that immigrants can't come to a state anymore. That means, for example, if such people trying to escape because of war in his country, he can't flee to a state of the European Union as easily as it is now. The reason is that they can't work immediately and have to live from a state, but because of Cameron's policy, they aren't entitled any more.

In my opinion is the idea Cameron's immigration policy isn't bad because you can't come to a country only to live without working. But I think that you had to discriminate between immigrants and refugees. If they want to work, but they can't, it's something different as if there is someone who can work but doesn't want to.

L. A.

Essay

There are a lot of immigrants for example from Romania and Bulgaria who come to other EU states and use state-funded services such as health care but do not work. This is a financial problem for these states because of a lack of taxes.

To counteract against this exploitation, Cameron has prepared an immigration bill which is designed to stop migrants abusing public services, reduce the pull factors which draw immigrants to another country and make it easier to remove people. In addition immigrants have to pay a levy about 200 pounds before using the National Health Service.

On the one hand there is lower financial burden for the other EU states if there is less immigration but on the other there is a risk of a step backwards concerning the single market or the open borders.

In my opinion the idea of the immigration bill is understandable because the state should only pay for people who work and therefore deserve the benefits. But this idea does not correspond to the idea of the European Union because these means the movement of people and also the liberty of the European Union would be indirectly violated. The free movement of people or here rather employees is also part of the European integration. In addition to that I think there are only some immigrants who abuse the state-funded services, but the most of the immigrants work and so they are an enrichment for the states. To sum up, Cameron’s immigration policy should not be an option for other members of the European Union.

L. A.

Is Cameron's immigration policy an option for the members of the European Single Market?

In the following text I would like to answer this question:

Many immigrants abuse the social services in that country where they immigrate to. The problem is that the immigrants don't pay contribution. So they only get money but don't pay anything. Cameron's solution is a bill that says that immigrants need to pay contribution to get social benefits.

Country with many inhabitants get more money because the immigrants pay taxes, too. The negative aspect, however, is that most immigrants haven't got much money, so it's difficult for them to spent money.

The answer to the question is no. Cameron´s immigration policy isn´t an option for the members of the European Single Market.

I think this bill isn't good, because we exploit the immigrants when we demand contribution for social services. And many immigrants can work in Germany. So it is good for our economy!

But we need other approaches to prevent immigrants from exploiting the state!

L. S.

Welcome

Dear readers,

This first post is written to inform about the idea underlying this blog. Thus, tree aspects have to be considered: firstly the content of the entries, secondly the purpose of those entries and linked to the latter, finally, the definition and purpose of CLIL.

The entries in this blog deal with various topics of the political sphere. It is, however, not designed to inform about the political or social matters proper, but to express personal views on political and social issues.

Offering students of various forms a platform to post essays, comments or reports on different political issues and thereby uttering their personal views, this blog is also a contribution to CLIL.

The acronym CLIL can be understood as “Content and Language Integrated Learning, and is where a subject [i.e. social studies] is taught in the target language rather than the first language of the learners. In CLIL classes, tasks are designed to allow students to focus on and learn to use the new language as they learn the new subject content” (http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/knowledge-database/clil, last opened: 23/04/2014). By learning the new subject content, additionally, the students gain insight into the (political) culture of the country analysed.

Learning about the (political) culture of the countries considered, the students also acquire the values which the specific nations are based on. Those different values themselves can gradually become the basis on which students will form their own opinions. This seems to be especially important as far as controversial topics are concerned. An approach to establish controversy is to regard and then evaluate various points of views on the same topic but in different countries. As this demand of social studies by regarding a topic from various perspectives is inherent in CLIL itself, it can rather easily be generated by bilingual teaching as such.

To sum up the blog is a way of communicating and presenting students' opinions based on a certain set of values formed by CLIL not only in class but also to wider audience. Incidentally, it opens an insight to relatively new field of CLIL in terms of social studies.

G. B.