Narcis has just graduated a Master in Development and International Relations and is now looking for a job in the field. He is quite involved in politics and EU, and as he says, “plans to involve his mental resources into this area in the future.”
You’re quite involved with the European Union, where did this interest come from?
Before 2014, I was very much involved with the United Nations and I was dreaming that one day I would work for them. But when I got deeper into the organization, I saw that they were not capable of doing much change in the world. They are still quite limited in their abilities and funding. It is extremely hard to get a job there; you have to wait for years and undergo ten years of different pieces of training to be able to have a start in positions which are badly paid.
When I realized this, I looked at the EU. I found out there was an organization here in town, the ‘European Youth’. There were only two people in it, who had been keeping it alive for a few years. It was like a small friends’ club.
In January 2015 I became the President of European Youth North Denmark. Then I discovered that EUN was part of a bigger entity, the Young European Federalists who had also sections all over the European Union and even outside of the Union.
We have sections even in Belarus, Armenia and Azerbaijan. The more I found out about it, the more I realized that it was a whole undiscovered place. I started to focus on building up local pro-European Organization from zero. In the same time, I started to build up my European profile.
How did you do it?
I started to go to Erasmus+ projects — my first such project was in Norway. For two weeks, we were stranded in a cabin in the mountains with no internet, supposed to train public speaking. We would go outside and speak to the mountains to hear ourselves speaking loudly.
One of the guys there, called Junior, was from Mauritius. He had spent his entire youth in France and at that time was studying in Copenhagen. But he was the advisor of the French prime minister in Nordic countries. He started being involved at 15 and after ten years, he was already the advisor of the prime minister. He had a speech about Europe, he described everything Europe did for him, everything Europe was and what his life would be like without it. That speech really inspired me. Then I slowly started to be more inclined to the European Union rather than the United Nations.
That is when things really sped up a lot. In 2015, 2016 and 2017, I travelled probably to forty or fifty different places and never used money from my pocket. Obviously, when Europe gives you this huge opportunity, you should take it.
Would you like to be involved with the European Union in the future?
I would like to be a public employee of the European Union or a so-called European civil servant. There is a test that you can take. Only one person in Denmark passes it every year. It is extremely hard but once you get it, you have an assured job for life. You will always have that title of European servant and you can just change jobs between different agencies and institutions. The job opportunities are not only in Brussels, but there are also agencies in Copenhagen, Madrid, Barcelona, Athens… Once you have the title, you can switch freely. It opens a whole new world.
Besides that, I will be running again for the European Parliament in 2024 in the next elections. I ran this year as well, I was number 25 in the Romanian list of the “Union Save Romania”. Unfortunately, the party made an alliance with another party so I was out of the list in the end.
Will you run in Romania again?
We will see how things run in Denmark. I might even run in the UK if they stay. Right now, they are looking for candidates, because they might run for elections if Brexit does not happen. The elections are this May. Which means all the parties have to find, out of nowhere, candidates — and there are 73 spots for them.
What is your perspective on sustainability?
Well, we all are aware that if we don’t act, we might very well be the last generation to see Earth flourish in a way. I’m not only referring to climate change but to overpopulation and the fact that there will be more old people than young ones, which means that the economy will not be sustainable anymore.
We have to rethink the current economy. What is work? What can be considered work? Moreover, what should not be considered work? We will have to rethink the welfare state because right now, it is running out of money. There used to be 5 workers per 1 old person, but right now is 2 workers per one old person. It is predicted that in the next 10 years it will be one per one and then even lower. Which basically means that the state will have less and less money.
I think our generation will have to deal with some very hard questions. And the worst thing is we are talking about the next ten years, not the far future. The more I read, the less positive I become.
What do you think is the biggest challenge nowadays?
The biggest challenge is to have a political class that is willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of the people. Right now, politicians must make some hard decisions. For example, a politician is to go out there and say: “From next year, we will stop all cars from the roads.” Point blank. That politician will make a political suicide. But the law will still be valid and people will have to accept it. However, one politician must sacrifice himself for that idea.
Do you think the European Union is doing enough?
The European Union is doing more than anyone else in the world, in the term of sustainability and climate. We are the only region in the world where we managed to bring back animals that had disappeared previously. We can do a lot at the European level, but the problem is not having the power to force the states to implement more radical ideas. And there is dissonance. So, while at the European level all the ideas taken are great, the problem is seeing them put into reality.
Is sustainability something you prioritize in European Youth or in your own life, for example?
I chose to not to fly in Europe. I decided that would be my contribution in a way to this whole thing. Only if I travel outside of Europe, I consider flying. Otherwise, I have been to Romania, I have been all over Europe and I took a train, bus, car share, boat, whatever I could.
In the European Youth, we have employed a greener line. We had a green activist in the group in 2016. A girl, Daniella, joined us, and she was an environment-oriented person. She said that we should do something with climate change. We allowed her to have a platform inside the European Youth North. We started celebrating Earth Day. Later, we dropped eating chips and junk food in our events. We try to have as little waste as possible. We try not to have flyers printed, we are slowly moving away from using paper.
If you could implement one change locally here in Aalborg, what would that change be?
We are doing quite well. We are ahead in terms of sustainability implementation in the way the town runs, compared to other cities. So, I would say that the current administration is doing a marvellous job in terms of sustainability.
If I was to do something about it, I would probably limit the access to cars in the city centre, completely. I would try to think about that and finally implement the light magnet rail we were talking about two years ago and that Copenhagen, in the end, did not allow. We were supposed to have that in Aalborg, but Copenhagen decided to cut the funding after we spent 60 million DKK on planning it…
And where was it going to be?
From Aalborg Vest all the way to the University. The centre would have been closed to cars. It would have been amazing. The city would have really gone green.
If you can give any message directed to the youth in Aalborg, what would it be?
The youth needs to understand that they will be the ones living with the biggest changes happening on Earth. Right now, our generation will have to feel some radical changes and the fastest we get used to the idea that will happen, the better prepared we will be. A lot of people will be taken by surprise.
We need to understand that we will never have the life of our parents or grandparents. We are not going to have a status, stability, and can’t afford to say “let’s not worry about the future”. Our life is going to be full of hard challenges, big changes and, if we are smart enough, we can at least make sure that our children and our grandchildren will have the life that our parents and grandparents had.
We are a generation of sacrifice and how well the world will be in the future depends on how well we do our job. If we manage to go to a zero-emissions society and make sure all the next generations will never have to worry about climate change again, we’d do our job. Right now, the youth need to understand that they must not just wait to grow up. They need to start getting involved now. I am happy to see teenagers going outside and saying “It’s pointless to go to school, what’s the point if you don’t have a planet to live on?” All the people who drove their whole lives will have a hard time saying: “Yes, I’m going to give up my car next year.” It will be easy for me to say: “Well, I’ll only eat meat just once a week, just because I want to.” I can learn, it doesn’t stop me, it doesn’t make me feel bad. A person that has been eating meat every day for 50 years, will have it extremely difficult.
Young people cannot stay away from politics, as it is the way you create change. That is why I always find politics to be more empowering than civil society.
What we lack in politics is young people. They need to understand politics is just a tool, a means toward something. It does not define who they are. You can choose to be different than nowadays politicians. Politics is just a tool. It is the art of negotiation. You need to use argumentation to make sure your ideas pass, or at least you make some compromise. Politics can be good or bad. But politics is a neutral thing. It is nothing you should be afraid of.
More information about Narcis:
- Current co-president of European Youth North Denmark
- Current national board member of the European Movement Denmark
- Current education secretary of the Social Democrat Party in Norresundby (Denmark)
- First deputy for the Region Council of North Denmark (First non-Danish citizen candidate in the political history of Denmark)
- Anti-corruption activist and member of “Union Save Romania” party
- Federalist activist; Speaker on the political rights of the European transnationals
- Speaker about fighting climate change!
Interviews conducted by: Viktoriya Dimitrova
Article written by: Luis Costa Pereira & Tereza Čechová
Edited by: Viktoriya Dimitrova
Interviewee: Narcis George Matache