YYMGE

Delegate ProspectusYale Model Government Europe

Contents1 Welcome

3 Our Mission

4 WHY YMGE

7 Committee Structure

8 Crises & Committee Structure

10 Meet the 2013 Secretariat

12 Star Alliance

13 YMGE at the Corinthia Hotel Budapest

14 Deadline & Fees

15 Schedule of Events

Dear Faculty Advisors and Delegates,

On behalf of the YMGE Secretariat and Yale International Relations Association, it is our great pleasure to invite you to the third annual session of Yale Model Government Europe (YMGE). YMGE 2013 will be held at the Corinthia Hotel Budapest from Thursday, November 28 to Sunday, December 1, 2013.

A storied yet innovative conference, YMGE draws on a large and distinctive background in international relations. Run by members of the Yale International Relations Association—a group of students with a passion for Model UN and international affairs—the conference draws hundreds of top high school students from institutions around the world to raise awareness of and foster debate about international policy and global affairs in the European context.

YMGE 2013 is not just a world class conference, but also a conference in its own class. We hope that you will participate. YMGE strives to inspire delegates to meet their full potential as critical thinkers seeking solutions to the major challenges of today’s world.

Registration materials are available on our website. If you have any questions about the conference or registration, please do not hesitate to contact our team. We look forward to seeing you in Budapest. In the heartland of the Renaissance, a reinvigorated conference awaits you!

Mindén jot

Best Wishes,

Matthew Finney Tiffany Ho

President, YMGEpresidents@ymge.org

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Our MissionYMGE aims to raise awareness of and foster debate about international relations and global affairs in the European context.

An innovative, collaborative, and inspiring learning environment fosters teamwork and participation. Delegates, as the world’s future leaders, develop self-esteem and invaluable conflict resolution skills.

A uniquely realistic simulation of global crisis challenges a diverse group of delegates to evaluate geopolitical dynamics and global perspectives.

Professional, dedicated, and conscientious YMGE staff members inspire delegates to meet their full potential as critical thinkers seeking solutions to the major challenges of today’s world.

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Why YMGE

Unique EU Simulation Yale Model Government Europe is unique in the fact that the conference simulates the deliberations of the European Union, as opposed to larger organizations like the United Nations. This means that YMGE committees both focus on tackling issues especially relevant to Europe and also encourage delegates to narrow their focus and develop meaningful, applicable solutions to the issues they engage.

Distinct Committee Roles YMGE structures the types of committees it runs to simulate the deliberation of actual decision-making entities of the EU, offering parliaments, specialized committees, and cabinets. Cabinets in particular provide delegates the chance to engage in unique crisis simulations. Each cabinet is comprised of delegates representing specific ministerial positions, and when crises unfold, ministers are asked to reshuffle and coordinate with ministers in other committees who share their roles. This reshuffling engenders the development of uniquely effective solutions to all aspects of crises.

Integrated Crisis At YMGE, each committee is run as a crisis committee, featuring significant crisis updates during every session. However, YMGE crises are particularly unique in that all committees’ crises are interrelated, as they are all part of one central crisis scenario. All committees’ crises correspond with a theme that allows the actions taken by one committee to address a situation that affects the proceedings in other committees. This integrated approach to crises makes for more exciting deliberations and calls on delegates to develop practical, nuanced, and globally-aware solutions.

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How is YMGE different from other Model UN conferences?

Quality of Staff Like all other conferences sponsored by the Yale International Relations Association, YMGE takes the quality of its committees very seriously. To ensure that committees are professionally run, YMGE employs a rigorous selection process to recruit Yale-student Committee Directors with passion for international relations and special knowledge about European affairs. Many of our Committee Directors are members of the Model United Nations Team at Yale, which is consistently ranked on the top MUN teams in the world, and all Committee Directors also chair committees in the collegiate Security Council Simulation at Yale.

Small Committees 75% of YMGE committees enroll fewer than 15 delegates and no committee is larger than 60 delegates. This small committee size ensures that delegates have plenty of opportunity to participate in debate and play influential roles in their committee’s decision making. An intimate committee environment and individual attention from the Yale staff pushes delegates to reach new understandings of diplomacy, crisis management, and international relations.

Proven Educational Value If you don’t take our word for it that our committees are engaging and well-run, you can listen to delegations advisors from past years instead! 4 of YMGE’s 7 learning outcomes received overall evaluations of “Major Improvement” or higher in a 2013 survey of schools that attended YMGE 2011 or 2012. These advisor evaluation results indicate that delegates walk away from YMGE with greatly enhanced confidence in large groups; appreciation of global affairs and other cultures; and capacity to think quickly, adapt to information, conduct research, and build consensus.

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“I would say the integrated crisis system [at YMGE] was the best part about the conference. I liked it because I liked the fast-paced debate... I also hadn’t been to a conference that ran crisis like this before.”

The conference emulates the proceedings of the European Union and its constituent nations’ cabinets, ministries, and parliaments. YMGE 2013 will simulate 28 different European government bodies, including:

3 National ParliamentsThese parliaments engage in debate on contemporary topics such as the European debt crisis, immigration, and the world’s changing power structure.

1 Specialized CommitteeThis committee targets hotspots in global affairs with a European bent, including multi-national alliances, conflict intervention, and cybersecurity.

12 National Cabinets & 12 Ministerial CabinetsThe national and ministerial cabinets, sampled from various EU countries, will be discussing issues unique to their respective agendas, such as financial regulation, agricultural policy, and combating extremism.

Our unique conference format comprises two types of sessions. In standard committee debate, delegates are placed in a parliament, European government, or supranational body to discuss important issues pertaining to the future of Europe and the international community. In crisis sessions, all committees have to table their individual debates to come together and solve an issue that threatens the integrity of the international system and European integration. As a result, each committee will have to respond to the decisions made by their counterparts in a fast-paced and wholly immersive debate.

Committee Structure

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Crises & Committee Structure

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In order to make the crisis simulation as close to real-life as possible, we take the idea of a crisis to the next level: the crisis at YMGE will be an unexpected reshuffling of established stable political contexts. It will test the flexibility and creativity of delegates and require them to adapt quickly to a realist, changing world, as well as interact and cooperate with their colleagues in many different committees. Every committee will be kept abreast of developments in each of the others. In connecting the proceedings of committees, when the crisis begins, rather than falling primarily under the portfolio of one or a few cabinet ministers, the cabinets will be reshuffled to form European Councils of Ministers (CoMs), uniting all the ministers of a given portfolio into a joint task force with a mandate to tackle their aspect of the crisis. The aim of this crisis is to simulate the proceedings undertaken by European ministers in times of difficulty, and to expose student participants to a new dimension of global cooperation and politics.

Health & Well-being for Sustainable SocietiesYMGE 2013’s crises center around health and healthcare in Europe. With European populations

both growing and aging, health care-related questions merit serious consideration on the part of

European nations, in addition to the international community as a whole. This crisis theme asks

delegates to find ways to ensure the quality of health care infrastructure for the short and long

terms, as well as to mitigate serious public health hazards as they arise. Crises related to health

care carry high stakes, and addressing such crises successfully is essential to ensuring the

wellbeing of the entire European Community.

All delegates at YMGE undertake unique responsibilities for addressing critical issues of health care, whether their roles require them to repair failing domestic infrastructure, mitigate trans-continental outbreaks, or counter bioterrorist threats from abroad. Delegates in cabinet positions will deliberate both in their national cabinets and in reshuffled committees. By working in both settings, delegates will have prime opportunities to ensure that they adopt coherent, thorough, and efficient policy initiatives to tackle these critical issues.

Parliaments and Specialized Committees, while not reshuffling, receive constant crisis updates and have the opportunity to develop broad, overarching policy plans, taking into account the real-time actions of the national cabinets. As crises unfold, different committees will hone in on different crisis issues under their respective purviews. These committees have the unique abilities to articulate clear and definitive international policy, muster support from within Europe, and comment on actions taken by individual cabinets to keep national actors in check. The power of these committees even extends to summoning or subpoenaing cabinet members, to ask them to justify their actions and to hold them accountable for addressing crises in prudent fashion.

Ultimately, all of the different institutions represented at YMGE will have to work together to address health care crises successfully. Committees and committee members must cooperate if they wish to adopt effective crisis strategies. However, the fast-paced nature of YMGE crises and the urgent nature of health-related issues require delegates to act together with speed and decisiveness. Responding to health care crises necessitates comprehensive, coordinated, and celeritous action; YMGE 2013 will certainly ask delegates to employ the full range of analytical and diplomatic capability to tackle these issues.

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Matthew Finney Matthew, a junior in Calhoun College, comes to the YMGE team from Brussels, Belgium. A native of Richmond, Virginia, he moved to Belgium at the age of 10 and attended an international school. Matthew has been a delegate and organizer at various Model UN conferences in Europe and North America. His academic interests include Europe and Economics; Matthew also enjoys graphic design and playing the double bass. In his free time, he relishes in Belgian chocolate truffles, long walks on the beach, and Starbucks.

Tiffany Ho Having said goodbye to California sunshine, Tiffany Ho now studies at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. She is a junior considering a double major in Political Science and Global Affairs. Spare-time activities include eating apple pie with vanilla ice cream, checking for mail at the post office, and biking up East Rock. A relentless overachiever, Tiffany gets ready for morning class in just under 6 minutes.

Ben Della Rocca A sophomore in Davenport College, Ben was born and raised in Hamden, Connecticut. Ben is a prospective Ethics, Politics, and Economics major, and his other academic interests include philosophy, East Asian language, and linguistics. On campus, Ben debates for the Yale Debate Association and participates on Yale’s Model UN team. Ben is enthralled to be traveling with YIRA beyond New Haven to Europe for YMGE 2013.

David Steiner David is a sophomore from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He joins YMGE after working on three other YIRA conferences: the Security Council Simulation at Yale, Yale Model United Nations, and Yale Model United Nations Korea. Most of his YIRA experience is with crisis-based committees, and he, along with Ben and Seyoung, look forward to creating dynamic and interactive crisis-based committees for YMGE 2013’s delegates.

Directors of Committees & Crisis Planning

Seyoung Lee Seyoung Lee is a Berkeley College sophomore from Seoul, Korea. She has lived in Hong Kong, Tennessee, Maryland, Hong Kong, and Massachusetts. While she has not yet declared a major at Yale, she is interested in political science. She is a volunteer at JUNTA for Progressive Action (a non-profit serving the New Haven community), and she works in the Asian-American Students Alliance.

The YMGE 2013 Secretariat

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Directors of Finance & Corporate RelationsBilly Thomas Billy is sophomore in Pierson College. He grew up in the great state of Minnesota—home of Scotch Tape, Spam, and -40ºC temperatures—and his Minnesotan accent has been known to come out at times. Billy is an active member of the Yale Model UN Team and plays the trumpet in the Yale Precision Marching Band and the Yale Concert Band.

Director of Branding & Operations

Aaron Berman Aaron is a Yale sophomore from Rockville, Maryland—a suburb of Washington, DC. He is particularly interested in matters related to global health and plans to major in History of Science, Medicine, and Public Health. Besides his involvement with YMGE, Aaron is also an editor for the Yale Review of International Studies and works for the Yale College Dean’s Office as a Communication and Consent Educator. In his spare time, he enjoys live-tweeting and learning lyrics to rap songs.

Directors of Recruitment

Chaitanya Singhania Chaitanya is a sophomore in Trumbull College. Although hailing from New Delhi, India, he has previously lived in Singapore. While he has not yet declared a major, his academic interests range from comparative classical literature to postcolonial thought to rural development and education reform. In his free time, he works with Academics Stand Against Poverty, teaches high school students in New Haven, and writes for The Yale Globalist.

Joao Pedro de O. M. Drechsler JP is a sophomore in Ezra Stiles from Porto Alegre, Brazil. While he was born and raised in Brazil, he was exposed at an early age to International travel and foreign languages (being fluent in Portuguese, English, French and Spanish). He will most likely major in Economics or Global Affairs. At Yale, Joao Pedro participates in YIRA, works as a consultant for the Elmseed Enterprise Fund, and as an analyst for the Yale Student Investment Group.

Dana Schneider Dana Schneider is a junior in Silliman College and hails from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is a Political Science major and plans to pursue a master’s degree in harp performance before going on to business or law school. Dana also writes for the Yale Daily News. After chairing the YMUN conference, Dana is excited serve on the YMGE secretariat!

Lillian Xie Lillian is a junior at Yale University majoring in Economics. Originally from Palo Alto, California, she likes to take advantage of the great weather to hike the Foothills and dabble in photography. When she isn’t working on YMGE’s killer brand identity, Lillian works as a strategy leader for the non-profit Yale Undergraduate Consulting Group, as well as pitches stocks as an investment board head of Smart Woman Securities.

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YMGE is proud to announce the Star Alliance as its official airline network.

With this partnership, YMGE delegates and advisors can book travel arrangements at preferential rates. E-mail Joao Pedro Drechsler at recruitment@ymge.org for the event code when you book your tickets. Simply quote the event code when you make your booking with participating Star Alliance member airlines at staralliance.com/conventionsplus/delegates/ and you’ll automatically get a discount of up to 20%.

The Star Alliance network has 27 member airlines with over 21,900 flights a day and can offer you a variety of choices when planning your future travel arrangements. For more information about Star Alliance’s member airlines and contact details, please visit their website at staralliance.com/conventionsplus.

SAVE UP TO 20%ON FLIGHTS TO YMGE 2013 WITH STAR ALLIANCECONVENTIONS PLUS

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YMGE at the Corinthia Hotel BudapestKeeping with tradition of selecting unique, interesting, and beautiful locations, YMGE 2013 will be held in Budapest, Hungary. Nestled along the Danube River, the luxurious Corinthia Hotel will host the conference. YMGE has negotiated significantly discounted room rates at the Corinthia for delegates and advisors. Budapest, rich with history and culture, offers many varied activities for time out of committee.

Deadlines & FeesYMGE has two registration tracks - Early Registration and Regular Registration. Schools that successfully complete Early Registration for YMGE 2013 will benefit from discounted conference fees, access to a reserved pool of specialized positions, as well as earlier notification of committee assignments.

Please register at http://ymge.org/registration-form/.

Early RegistrationDelegation prepayment is due 8 business days after registration. Delegation final payment is due September 13, 2013

Prepayment —EUR 300/USD 400Delegation—EUR 100/USD 135Advisor Fee —EUR 60/USD 80Delegate Fee —EUR 140/ USD 185

Regular RegistrationDelegation prepayment is due 8 business days after registration.Delegation final payment is due by November 8, 2013.

Prepayment EUR 455/USD 600Delegation Fee—EUR 160/USD 210Advisor Fee —EUR 100/USD 130Delegate Fee —EUR 195/USD 260

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Wednesday, November 2719.00-21.30: Early registration21.30-22.30: Pre-Conference Meeting for Advisors

Thursday, November 2813.00-19.30: Registration17.00-19.00: Dinner cruise on the Danube

Delegations will have the opportunity to join Yale

students for the Opening Dinner

19.30-20.15: Opening Ceremonies20.30-22.00: Committee Meeting I 22.00-23.30: Committee Meeting 2

Friday, November 2910.30-11.30: Workshops12.00-15.00: Crisis Meeting 1 15.30-18.30: Crisis Meeting 2 20.00-22.00: Crisis Meeting 3

Saturday, November 309.00-11.30: Crisis Meeting 4 13.30-15.00: Crisis Meeting 5 15.30-17.00: Committee Meeting 3

Sunday, December 19.00-10.15: Committee Meeting 4 10.30-11.30: Closing Ceremonies

Schedule of Events

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“I think the way Yale Model Government Europe organizes crises is very innovative. [The integrated crisis structure] makes for great debate because it lets delegates cross committees and work together in new ways, keeping us always thinking about issues from new perspectives. It was a really exciting way to run the conference.”

At YMGE 2013, a cutting edge conference awaits you in a World Heritage Site, where mist from the Danube River glistens against the backdrop of mosaic Ottoman domes. Dedicated and inspirational staff from Yale International Relations Association (est. 1969) will come together in Budapest, Hungary to host some of the world’s most motivated and talented delegates.

With a mission to foster inspiration, collaboration and innovation, the conference exceeds precedence with a skillful and deliberate combination of true-to-life current events and creative challenges. In an atmosphere of teamwork, camaraderie and scholarship you and your delegation will gather with fellow future leaders.

YMGE builds on the prestige and tradition of Yale’s flagship Model UN program and brings critical thinking and global citizenship to the forefront of discussions and debates in diplomacy. Take a moment to visit our website, www.ymge.org, to find more information about our

• unique and interactive crisis model,• dynamic committees, and• professional conference and setting.

Early Registration closes on June 14, 2013, and Regular Registration is limited by availability. Visit www.ymge.org to register today, and feel free to contact us with any questions. Join us at YMGE 2013 in Budapest, Hungary. The heartland of the Renaissance awaits you!

Joao Pedro DrechslerChaitanya Singhania

Directors of Recruitment, YMGE 2013recruitment@ymge.org

Inspire. Collaborate. Innovate.