Students from all over Europe become EESC Members for one day. On 16 April the European Economic and Social Committee will host a day-long mock plenary session attended by over one hundred secondary school students and their teachers from the 27 EU countries.

Over one hundred students from all the member states will be EESC members for one day. Seconded by EESC Members and experts, the students will thrash out an opinion on alcohol-related harm. The plenary session will be chaired alternatively by Irini Pari, EESC Vice-President and a number of other Committee Members.

Participating schools were selected at random from almost a thousand applications. Participants will be addressed by EESC Group Presidents, by the Head of the European Commission Representation in Belgium, Willy Hélin, and a number of  other stakeholders and experts.

In the run-up to the event, the participating schools received a draft opinion to which they were allowed to table up to three amendments. These amendments will be discussed at the plenary session and, if approved, will feed into the final text of the opinion.

Furthermore, in order to prepare for the event, in February and March all participating schools were visited by EESC members who discussed European affairs with the students, answered their questions and outlined how EESC Plenary Sessions are run.

The students are staying in Brussels for two days and their itinerary will also include a visit to the European Parliament and a tour of the city.