Luuk Timmers, Bas Moelands, Pepijn Snoek and Rens Hogeweg (V5TG)
0:10 – 0:57 (Hyper lapses of European cities)
“Almost 70 years ago after WWII ended, our 6 founding countries called the inner sic came together and established a community, the ECSC, the European coal and steel community.
This community was the beginning of something much greater than every could be imagined, the European Union. Back then it was utilized for economic purposes only. Since the beginning 1951 the European Union has not only grown horizontally as well as vertically by its addition of policy areas to its remit. This development has raised some minor downsides which have led to the department of the UK. To ensure that these disadvantages will not rise above the advantages such as the free trade and open borders we will have to adjust and emerge even stronger.”
0:19 – ECSC shows on screen
0:30 – Economy shows on screen
0:40 – Politics shows on screen
0:54 – Free trade and Open boarders show on screen beneath each other
Background info
The ECSC was an economic cooperation started by the inner six, The Netherlands, Belgium,
Luxembourg, France, Germany and Italy. This both for economic purposes as mentioned as well as to keep an eye on Germany’s trading activities concerning these two compounds.
The European Union traces back to the ECSC but was only recognized as the European
Union since 1993 when the treaty of Maastricht came in to force. The department of the
UK was the result of dissatisfaction due to the feeling of losing political power.

1:01 – 2:17 (Hyper lapses of European cities)
“ Insight of our recent decision to adjust our course we decided also our criteria should be amended. The Copenhagen criteria only cover the preservation of democracy and human rights, a functioning market economy able to cope with competition and market forces and the institutional capacity to effectively implement the acquis and able to take on obligations of membership. We came to the conclusion that in addition to these criteria a member state should also have English as a mandatory subject up until high school to ensure the unity and remove the language barrier that is keeping us from reaching this unity. Also all member states should accept the euro as currency to make even further progress on economic grounds and enhance our position in the Global trade system.’
‘After implementing these criteria, we will have to eliminate several countries due to the fact that they do not meet the newly set standards. Others who do meet these except for the new criteria set on the topic of currency will be given a chance to amend and proceed their membership of the new European Union, Ourtopia. In our utopian view there will be
18 countries left who are going to be stronger and more united than ever before.”
1:07 – ‘Copenhagen Criteria’ is shown on screen
1:21 – ‘Aqcuis’ is shown on screen
1:31 – ‘English’ is shown on screen
1:54 – ‘Eliminate’ is shown on screen
1:58 – 2:16 – All 18 countries of our Utopia are shown
2:16 – heart forms made out of a person standing in various places and put together in one frame
Background information
We all agreed that the Copenhagen criteria needed to be changed. The main reason for this was that they were way too easy to pass. Just like the example of Italy Mrs. Hafmans gave in class, Italian government raised taxes in order to pass the economy criteria. After they were allowed to join the EU they just paid back the taxes. This is why we set some new criteria which needed to be fulfilled in order to become part of our European Utopia.
2:21 – 3:21 (Hyper lapses of European cities)
“A new beginning calls for a new political system and that is why the following changes will be implemented. There will still remain three institutions, these are the council of ministers, European parliament and the council of executives. The council of minister and the European parliament are both responsible in the first face phase, in this phase proposals are set up. The council of ministers exists of 18 members; these members are ministers regarding the topic from each individual country. The European parliament consist of 180 representatives, 10 from each country. Every four years these are elected by their citizens regardless of the topics. The second phase is to work out this proposal and vote upon each bill, which will be done by the same two institutions. If the proposal is approved it will executed by the third institution, the council of executives, it consists of
18 members, these are the highest politically ranked persons from each country to execute laws.”

2:29 – 2:34 - ‘Council of ministers, European Parliament and Council of executives’ are shown on screen
2: 40 – ‘Proposal’ is shown on screen
3:01 – ‘Vote up on bills’ is shown on screen
3:20 – ‘Execute laws’ is shown on screen
Background information
By changing how our European Utopia should be governed we hoped to fasten decision making. We also wanted citizens to have bigger interference, that’s why we made it possible to vote on the council of ministers.
3:25 – 4:38 (Hyper lapses of European cities)
“We as the creators of our own utopia are gutted to see that England have left the EU for
(in our opinion) such a minor cause but a cause that, as indicated, needs adjusting. We live in a time where money has the upper hand in almost everything as well as politics which has led us to realize that we should be focussing more on the level of economic cooperation. We feel like we should only make minor amendments in our policy system in an effort to try and avoid involvement in national matters. To clarify what will change, we use 2 important terms. ‘Exclusive competence’ meaning that only the Ourtopia can decide on this topic and ‘Shared competence’ meaning that the Ourtopia decides on the topic, unless they said countries can differentiate regarding this policy. Political freedom in the
Ourtopia will be important nevertheless there are 2 topics we believe we should have more political power over and these are energy and environment. Both have a connection with our planet, a planet that we should foster and take care of before it is too late. That’s why we want to make these former shared competences, exclusive competences so that these countries will take on our policy concerning these topics and we together can actually change our future.”
Background information
To ensure that the feeling of losing political power will not lead to other countries making the same decision changes must be made concerning the policy area of the Ourtopia. Our point of view is pretty progressional meaning we recognize the issues at hand concerning our planet and agree that changes should be made and that no country on its own could change the future regarding climate change ang global warming. To secure the idea of sure changes being made we want to appoint his decision towards the political system of the
Ourtopia.

4:41 – 5: 15 (Hyper lapses of European cities)
“Since we are going to adjust our course economically as well as politically we want to change what represents us since we feel like this is not correctly done anymore. Our name will from here on out be Ourtopia representing the perfect unity we want to achieve which can only be done by our cooperation. As logo we chose the 5 fold symbol, in our context, the 4 outer circles symbolize values which we deem important. These are freedom, equality, solidarity and force. And in the centre unity, working together to achieve the impossible.”
4:53 – ‘Ourtopia’ shows on screen
5:00 – picture of the 5 fold symbol is shown on screen
5: 08 – ‘freedom + equality’ is shown on screen
5: 10 – ‘solidarity + force’ is shown on screen
5: 13 – ‘Unity’ is shown on screen
Background information
The 5 fold symbol is a Celtic symbol, for the Celts the 4 outer circles symbolise the 4 elements (fire, water, earth and air) and the middle circle symbolise ‘the fifth element, spirit’. Here the spirit element was not yet proven, rather they pushed down the barriers of thought and had the ability to see what others did not exist. We chose this symbol because we feel like we can relate to this. In our context, the 4 outer circles symbolise values which we deem important (as are the elements). These are freedom, equality, solidarity and force. The centre represents the perfect EU; Ourtopia, what others deem impossible.
Our 4 values we deem important can also be seen in our criteria to join.
- the freedom and equality circle are related to our criteria ’preserve democracy and human rights’. We also have a criteria ‘accept Ourtopia policies’ . These policies are the same for everyone so nobody is an exception, but we are a team, all just as important/equal!
- the solidarity circle represents our criteria ‘English has to be a mandatory subject taught at school’ since if we would all speak English we could communicate easier. Also the use/adaptation of the euro is a criteria because we feel like it also improves the unity, since people have more in common.
- the circle about force has to do with our criteria ‘To have a strong, independent and free market economy’ since we want to start small and grow slow.

Outro 5:18 – 5:47
(Hyper lapses of European cities fading to a white screen with on it “unity is the answer to development)
“We stand here today, grateful for the support and believe that has carried us from times of crisis to a new era of prosperity and unity, economically but also politically. Now a new era has bestowed upon us where our strongest nations will fight to keep up this level of unity extend it and leave their mark on the global economic system. Because ‘Unity is the answer to development.’’
5:43 – ‘Unity is the answer to development’ is shown on screen
Background info
‘Unity is the answer to development’ is also our slogan.

week lessons
34 Introduction – step 1
35 Step 2: the current member states & candidates to join
36 Step 2: updating the accession criteria
37 Step 3: governing the EU
38 Step 4: exiting the EU & degree of sovereignty
39 Group work: process steps 1-5, work on script
40 Group work: process steps 1-5, work on script
41 Group work: work on script & video
42 Autumn break
43 Last lesson to work on the video
 Step 1: together
 Step 2: together
 Step 3: together
 Step 4: Pepijn Snoek
 Step 5: Luuk Timmers, script
 Step 6: Rens Hogeweg, Script
 Step 7: Bas Moelands, script
In several lessons we did the first three steps together and although we sometimes had some discussions, eventually everyone did their part of the work. The other four steps remaining were divided. In the end everyone delivered their part with the expected quality of work. Rens did step 6 which gave him an awful lot of work in the end, but he managed to finish the video in time.

Evaluation:
We learnt a lot about the EU in general, for example which countries were already in the EU and who wanted to join. Some of the accession criteria were easy to pass and certain criteria’s had some faulty parts in it. For example, when you, Mrs Hafmans, explained how Italy passed the criteria about having a strong economy.
Although we made our own utopia we know that it is not easy to make a Union which is politically and financially strong in real life and so we tried to make our ideal European
Utopia. In this Utopia we left some countries which are currently in the EU on the side.
We learnt that making changes is something which leads to discussions and that is why it is so difficult for the current EU to make changes in laws.
This project was only a short representation of how the EU is set up, but by means of this project we learned to understand that everyone has a different opinion on their perfect EU. This is what makes it so difficult to form an EU in which everyone is happy.
In the beginning of the project I was sceptical if we as a group could make an improved version of the EU. Because the EU is made and formed by experts who should be able to make the EU as good as possible, however we still found some flaws in the EU.
That’s what made this project interesting because you can’t make an improved version of the EU if you don’t how the EU works. So that’s why we learned much from this project. Even though the project takes up more time, I think it’s better than a regular test upon this subject as we now could use our creativity and work together in a group.
What I liked about this project is the creative way of getting to know the European
Union. By having to change it to your ideal image/organisation you first have to know and understand the EU for what it is now. I didn’t really like having to submit a video as a final product since I don’t really know my way around a computer and definitely don’t know how to edit. In the first couple of lessons we started of slow but we compensated for that in the later lessons and at home. I liked that this was a project because I think it wouldn’t have been so interesting if it were a test and I would just forget it shortly after the test.

For me this project one in which a lot of opinion was given and of course I learned multiple things about the European Union although if it were up to me I would alternate from this method of teaching since a lot more could be learned if decided to it different. The best part of this project for me was creating this end result. The time it took by writing all the text and putting the video together was greatly overexaggerated by myself but in the end I was seriously happy with the result and gave me an honest feeling of satisfaction. Altogether a fun project with maybe a bit too much creativity instead of education as main idea.