“Generation €”: How “European” is Youth in Southeast Europe? A Study of Generations in Romania, Slovakia and Kosovo Cover Image
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„Generation €“ – Wie „europäisch“ ist die Jugend in Südosteuropa? Eine Generationenstudie in Rumänien, der Slowakei und dem Kosovo
“Generation €”: How “European” is Youth in Southeast Europe? A Study of Generations in Romania, Slovakia and Kosovo

Author(s): Stefanie Bolzen
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences
Published by: Südosteuropa Gesellschaft e.V.

Summary/Abstract: Vaslui, Eastern Romania, on an early spring day: “Do you feel European?”, I ask Simona Epure, a 21-year-old Romanian woman. “European? Never!”, she answers promptly and looks at me with a doubtful expression. “I am a woman and I don’t have a job. For both reasons I feel discriminted. If Romania was really a part of Europe, there would not be discrimination.” Simona is a representative of the young generation that has lived the transformations after 1989, the transformations in a region that strives to become full part of the European Union. Yet this generation of the 19 to 26 years old is different to their contemporaries in the “old” EU-member states. By focussing this age group in three different countries on three levels of EU integration – Slovakia, Romania, Kosovo – it becomes clear that they do bring a new mind set into the Union: Their approach to the EU is much more pragmatic and individualistic than Brussels founding fathers would possibly have liked to see. They regard EU-membership as a mere tool for their personal objectives. This generation does not have trust in politics and is hardly willing to contribute to the well-being of the community. The young Slovaks, Romanians and Kosovars interviewed have internalized what it means to live in a globalised world with less and less theoretic borders and growing challenges for the individual. Therefore the author names this generation a “Generation “€”.

  • Issue Year: 2008
  • Issue No: 03
  • Page Range: 40-49
  • Page Count: 10
  • Language: German