Terrific and Recklessly Exhausting National Session (TRENS)

The European Youth Parliament is extremely strict, authorative and difficult to approach. A typical delegate has zero sense of humour, wears a tailored suit to school and goes to sleep at 9pm, weekend or not. If a normal person tries to join this secret society of snobs, they will be scoffed at, isolated and swiftly exterminated. After all, every EYP delegate has a personal bodyguard taking care of these threats to human decency.

I’m sure many of you can relate when I say this is the way I saw EYP when I first heard about it. I imagined vast conference rooms, undersized professional politicians and endless streams of coffee. Luckily, only my last guess was right. I want to congratulate all those who, like me, had this kind of images before joining EYP. It took immense courage to believe that you would end up having fun and making friends while discussing and learning not only about social issues, but other people as well. I know for certain that without the continuous support from a friend who was in EYP long before me I would never have dared to try it out. This only goes to emphasize the importance of inviting our mutuals to EYP and sharing our stories with the world. All of us participants in TRENS know – perhaps better than anyone – what all the ’normals’ are missing.

But what are those great things you can only experience at EYP? The answer often consists of four letters, in my case INTA. I ended up in this committee on accident due to forgetting to choose my committee preferences on time. Again, I imagine many can relate. Yet this was a mistake I believe I’ll cherish for many years to come. TRENS would have been nothing without these people, without the deep late-night discussions and dance parties, not to mention mouthing along Imagine because no-one in your squad knows the lyrics. Mind all that, we understood the weight of the issues we were tackling and even found joy in discussing them.

A week has passed faster than a foreign delegate learns to swear in Finnish, but I can still feel the EYP hangover as a thick cloud over my head. But honestly I don’t mind! I know I’ll meet you guys next year in Finland, and if you aren’t coming I’ll drag you with me.

Ps. The media team’s fabulous session issue had a couple of pages with quotes from TRENS so I decided to follow in their footsteps and put some down here too:

”When life gives you mandarins just keep on sleeping”

”FEMM has completely ignored transgender rights. If women are paid less than men, in the name of equality trans women should also be paid less!”

”La baguette”

Written by

Joona Jokilampi

Delegate
Committee on International Trade (INTA)