Out with the (ec)hoes

Dear readers,

Due to unforeseen circumstances, unfortunate connotations and higher EU powers, we've had to change our name from Stage Echoes back to the old name European Stagiaires Journal.

You can now find us HERE!

Any questions, comments, suggestions, love letters and hate mail should be sent to: european.stagiaires@gmail.com.

With love,

Team ESJ

UN Climate Conference: Game over for Kyoto?

International commitments for GHG emission reductions pass off with 2012. Debates at this week's UN Climate Change Conference in Durban will center around a renewal of the Kyoto Protocol. As pretty much a sole fighter, the EU will try to convince other parties of committing anew.

In 2012, the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol will expire. The Protocol, created in 1997, legally bound 37 industrialized countries and countries in transition to cut down on 5% of their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions during the past five years. As decided by the contracting parties at the Climate Summit in Bali 2007, the follow-up agreement to the Kyoto Protocol (KP2) should have been put into place in Copenhagen in 2009. However, until now, the parties have still not come to an agreement on the principal controversial issues of a KP2: the level of GHG reductions, the involvement of the developing countries and the extent of financial transactions.

This week, the international community will again meet together at the 17^th UN Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa. Time is pressing for decisions, which is why this summit could be the match point for the future of the Kyoto Protocol.

"We must do as much as we can to push others forward."
Connie Hedegaard, Commissioner for Climate Action

According to figures of the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the EU is the world's third-highest emitter of CO² emissions, following China, and the US as first and second respectively. The United States has never ratified the Kyoto Protocol nor cut down its GHG emissions. China is not a legally bound party to the Protocol and its CO² emissions have increased by 206% since 1990. The other important industrialized parties to the treaty, Japan and Canada, have completely failed to meet their reduction targets and have already refused to renew their commitments. Also Russia, which has shown brilliant reduction results, has pulled out again.




 

On the contrary, the EU-15 has proven to be a credible precursor of the Protocol, as it is predicted to meet its reduction target of 8% by 2012. According to a recently voted resolution by the European Parliament, the EU will take on leadership at the UN Climate Conference and push for a second commitment period.



Connie Hedegaard, Commissioner for Climate Action, is determined to fight for KP2, as she argued during a press conference last thursday: "Europe has been ready and is ready to commit again."

Confronted with the challenge that the EU will be a lone fighter, she stated: "Should we just relax and leave it to the rest? No, we must do as much as we can to push others forward."

However, it will be a tough fight, especially as the EU' s demands towards the other parties are very high. The EU's overall aim at Durban is to prepare for a legal framework for cutting down on GHG emissions, which the whole international community should take part in. The EU is prepared to commit itself again, but also requests this from others – an expectation that is reasonable, but unlikely to be fulfilled.

All in or all out?

Europe's main discussion partners for a KP2 are now the developing countries, and among them especially the Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs). These countries are willing to prolong the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, as they stated during a separate "BASIC Group" (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) conference in August (economist, 03/09/2011). However, what might seem to support the EU's ideas at first glance, is also the source of controversy as well.

The developing countries – and under the Kyoto Protocol, the NICs are counted for as such – are not legally bound parties, i.e., they do not commit to any GHG reductions. They are mainly included in the Protocol by the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which facilitates investments for climate change mitigation by industrialized countries in developing countries, e.g. alternative energy projects. These investment projects are mainly carried out in the NICs, which is where emission reduction is easiest to achieve. Unsurprisingly, that the BASIC group is very keen on preserving its special status under the Protocol.

However, this status is a key issue that Commissioner Hedegaard wants to see changed for the KP2. She says that this "artificial division between developed and developing countries does not reflect the world as it is today" and demands that developing countries are legally taken into account as well. She argues this demand by pointing out that the BRICS already represent almost one-third of the world's GDP and that by 2020, nearly two-thirds of global emissions will come from these countries. This concerns especially China which shows the largest growth in GDP and the largest volume of GHG emissions among the BASIC countries.

Nevertheless, Hedegaard does not want to absolve the responsibility of the industrialized world vis-à-vis the developing countries: "Today, the investments under the CDM go into very few countries. It is our aim to make CDM more attractive, especially for the very poor, least developed countries." Thus, it is another aim of the Commissioner to push forward the implementation of the Green Climate Fund which should furnish the developing countries with $100 billion a year by 2020.

The special status of the developing countries has since the childhood of the Kyoto Protocol been the main argument of important industrialized countries (the so called JUSCANNZ – Japan, US, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Norway, New Zealand) to not at all or only hesitantly ratify the Protocol. In this respect, Hedegaard's claim for the "same legal value for developed and developing countries" seems like a good (and probably the only) strategy to get the JUSCANNZ countries into the game as well.

The BASIC countries know that they must make promises on GHG reductions if they want to receive financing from the EU. China has promised a 40% reduction by 2020, Brazil of 36% (economist, 03/09/2011). However, these promises are far away from being a legally-bound commitment. And even Hedegaard's forecasts during the press conference denote that China is mainly interested in projects using the financial mechanisms implied in the Protocol.  

Playing the same game, the United States is more willing to pay off its bad climate conscience by contributing to the Green Climate Fund instead of reducing their GHG emissions.

changes between 1990 and 2010,
showing decoupling of GDP growth and emission level in the EU
source: IEA, 2011

The EU's ideal for a KP2 would be "all in" for legally bound emission reductions. If this is the sole aim of the KP2, at the moment, it seems more likely to result in an "all out". In order to come to an agreement upon the KP2, it will most likely be necessary to continue working with "soft instruments", such as CDM, for developing countries. However, if these investments can prove that decoupling economic growth from CO² emissions is also possible in newly industrialized countries, they may pave the way for legal commitments from these countries in the future. If, on the other hand, these countries realize that they can endlessly count on investments from Europe without committing themselves, the match point for the "true Kyoto" will never even be played.

by Elena Fries-Tersch

Europe: What fate for the beleaguered euro?

In recent months, the crisis in the euro zone has spread rapidly from peripheral members, such as Greece, Portugal and Ireland to some of the biggest economies in the European Union, namely Spain and Italy. This week the contagion continued, as interest rates on Belgian and French 10-year government bonds increased, and Germany only managed to sell €3.6 billion of the €6 billion-worth of 10-year Bunds available at an auction on Wednesday.

The European Commission’s index of consumer confidence fell for the fifth month in a row this November, signalling to a likely return to recession in the euro zone. The growing financial pressure in this area is increasing the likelihood of government defaults which may trigger the break-up of the euro zone.

In the not so distant past, to question the stability and solvency of the European single currency would have been thought sacrilegious. Upon the entry into circulation of euro coins and banknotes on 1 January 2002, the euro was widely regarded as a legitimate trading alternative to the US dollar. Confidence in the success of the euro was so strong that no provision for the exit of member states from the single currency was ever written into EU legislation.

The once unthought-of possibility of euro-zone disintegration is fast becoming a reality. Last week Germany’s conservative Christian Democratic Union party passed a resolution calling for changes to the Lisbon Treaty to allow euro-zone members to voluntarily exit the monetary union without giving up membership to the broader European Union.

Increasing unemployment in the euro zone means lower tax receipts and increases in welfare payments, rendering it more difficult for European governments to reduce their deficits. The foreseeable failure of governments to reach deficit-reduction targets will cause markets to question member states’ solvency to an even greater degree than previously.

The unwillingness of investors to fund sovereigns and banks is also undermining confidence in the euro. During the credit boom, cheap foreign loans were purchased in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland to finance housing booms and trade deficits. Consequently, these countries’ net foreign liabilities are close to 100 per cent of GDP. The majority of this debt is financed in the form of bonds sold to investors in creditor countries. While the latter tend to have low bond yields, debitor countries with large international debts have a high cost of borrowing. This amounts to an internal balance-of-payments crisis, which means the economic discrepancy between euro-zone countries is only likely to widen as debitor countries pay ever-increasing interest rates on their debt.

If a euro-zone member is forced to default, it will likely have to reinvent its currency. This would enable the country to write down the value of its debts, while also cutting its wages to give the country a competitive edge over those still in the euro zone. In addition, this would largely eliminate monetary shortages, because the countries’ national central banks would be free to bail them out, something which the ECB has thus far refused to do for ailing euro-zone members.

This currency reinvention comes at a price. If a member state were to pull out of the euro, it would have grave consequences for other weak economies. Governments would have to limit bank withdrawals and introduce capital controls, as depositors rushed to take out their savings to avoid losing money in a forced conversion to a weaker currency. Furthermore, the lack of investment security would disincentivise investment and lead to a credit shortage. Governments would be forced to find other sources of funding to bridge the gap between tax revenue and public spending.

While it is difficult to pre-empt how a disintegration of the euro-zone might come about, let us speculate. In advance of his resignation some two weeks ago, Mr Papandreou, the former Greek prime minister, proposed a referendum on Greece’s membership to the euro zone. Although the referendum was killed off by threats from the EU to withdraw the latest instalment of bail out money, a similar future fall-out between Greece and its creditors (the EU, the ECB and the IMF) may prompt Greek withdrawal from the single currency. Or perhaps it will be a failed bond auction that tips the applecart and leads to a euro-zone member leaving the monetary union. Italian bonds worth €33 billion and €48 billion will reach maturity in January and February respectively. Given Germany’s recent troubles shifting its sovereign bonds, it is not unlikely that Italy will also struggle to sell its debt off to investors.

If the euro zone does disintegrate, the consequences would be disastrous. The region would be torn apart by government defaults, a drying up of available capital, bank failures, and the imposition of capital controls. More broadly, the demise of the euro zone would endanger the future of the European Union itself.

Nevertheless, the euro zone can still survive, but only with strong policies and swift action. The ECB, hitherto unwavering in its refusal to act as a lender of last resort, should launch a comprehensive programme of bond-buying to avoid the euro zone plunging into a deep recession. However, to attract investors back to government bonds, the euro zone also requires more than just ECB support. Analysts stress the need for a solid debt instrument which would, in some form, share liability for government debts. Germany’s Council of Economic Experts has proposed mutualising all euro-zone debt above 60 per cent of each country’s GDP, and allocating a percentage of tax revenue to paying it off over a 25-year period. The German administration has nevertheless rejected this idea, fearful that it would be their country bearing the burden of weaker states’ economic strife.

One thing is sure: the attitude in member states’ governments needs to change. And fast. Otherwise the euro will certainly die a very painful death. 


By Sonia Jordan

Memos from Member States

Belgium: Political stalemate to end?

Moves were made to put an end to the political stalemate in Belgium this week, with Elio di Rupo as the likely candidate to become the next prime minister after the King asked the French speaking socialist leader to form a new government.

The move comes after the political parties reached a deal on the 2012 budget in which Belgium commits to reduce its deficit to 2.8 per cent of GDP. The agreement symbolises an important step towards to the formation of a new government more than 18 months after elections were held.

Pressure was building on Belgium to act after Standard and Poors downgraded the country’s credit rating stating the government’s inability to respond to economic pressures as one of the principal factors contributing to the downgrade.

Latvia: Latvijas Krajbanka goes bust

The Latvian financial watchdog Finansu un Kapitala Tirgus Komisija (FKTK) announced this week that the troubled Latvian bank Latvijas Krajbanka had no further deposit availability, meaning that the bank is no longer able to function.

The Latvian government has announced that there will be no state bail out for Latvijas Krajbanka, of which the Lithuanian government is the majority shareholder. The Latvian government has instead urged Lithuania to bail out the bank.

Krajbanka's clients will receive their state-guaranteed compensations for their deposits up to the sum of LVL 70,000 (EUR 100,000) within 20 days. Deposits beyond that sum will be lost if no takers are found to bail out the bank. Several Latvian state institutions have much larger deposits in Krajbanka.

While the majority of deposits in Latvijas Krajbanka – LVL 343 million altogether – is private individuals' money, small and medium-sized enterprises, corporate entities, and state-owned companies are also entitled to receive the state-guaranteed compensation. Despite the much larger size of their deposits however, these companies and intuitions will only receive a maximum of LVL 70,000 each, the same sum as individual investors.

Germany: Neo-nazi activities to be investigated

The east-German authorities faced scrutiny this week over whether official protection was afforded to a trio of neo-Nazis who murdered members of minority groups – mostly Turkish store owners but also one German police officer – between 2000 and 2007.

Two male members of the far-right group called the ‘National Socialist Underground’ were found dead this month, in suspected suicide cases.

Investigations are currently being undertaken to ascertain whether the killers benefited from sympathy from the German information services. All unsolved cases with a possible racist motive since 1998 were reopened this week.

By Sonia Jordan

I love techno: fête d'une foule folle de la musique électronique

la foule dansante:
 I Love Techno a attiré 35.000 spectateurs

Samedi passé, des trains quelques peu particuliers sont arrivés à la jolie petite gare de Gand en Flandre: ils étaient chargés d’une foule de party people assis partout dans les couloirs, couverts de couleurs fluos, des gobelets de vodka dans les mains. Le genre de gens que les vieilles dames appellent « ces jeunes d'aujourd'hui » en secouant leur tête avec dénigrement et les sourcils froncés. D'autant plus surprenant que cette foule festive n'était pas composée principalement de jeunes rebels, mais d'étudiants sages, de jeunes salariés, de stagiaires européens…et tous n'avaient qu'une passion en tête: la passion de la techno.

Pour son seizième anniversaire, le festival I Love Techno a attiré 35.000 spectateurs à la Flanders Expo de Gand. Plus de 20 DJs connus sur la scène électronique internationale ont fait trépider les cinq énormes salles pendant une nuit entière, de neuf heures du soir jusqu'à six heures du matin.

A la gare de Gand, la foule folle était 'squeezée' dans les "Pendeltrams" qui l'ont amenée au festival. Cela n'aurait pas été tout à fait la Belgique si un tram n'était pas tombé en panne au milieu de la route entraînant un énorme embouteillage de Pendeltrams. Cela n'a pas dérangé la foule qui ne s'est pas arrêtée là et a continué le voyage à pied comme déjà entraînée par les rythmes électroniques.

Interested in international experiences? The Youth in Action Programme gets you there

Have you ever heard about the wonderful opportunity to meet people from another country, travel and visit them abroad, discuss certain – for you – interesting topics over the course of several weeks? Or even to spend up to one year abroad, working in an organization, while not even being a student or an organization member – and all this with the financial support from the EU? If not, do not worry, you are in between two thirds of those unlucky people who have never heard about the Youth in Action programme offered by the European Commission. Stage Echoes is here to right that wrong, inform you about the programme and give you a chance to participate on it.


Find out more about Youth in Action possibilities here.


To gain a bigger overview on the programme, Lucia Mrazova interviewed Mr. Pascal Lejeune. He has been working for the European Commission since 1986 and currently, he is the head of the Unit in charge of Youth in Action that deals with the ambitious programme for all young people in Europe.  

Memos from Member States

Spain: Centre-right predicted to win general elections

Voters in Spain headed to the polls on Sunday in an election expected to bring an end to over 7 years of socialist party rule. Opinion polls conducted in November predict that the centre-right Partido Popular, led by Mariano Rajoy Brey, will win more than 45 per cent of the vote, some 15 per cent ahead of the Socialists.

The election was called by current prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, amid concerns over the economy. With slow growth, the highest unemployment rates in Europe, and borrowing rates that passed 6 per cent this week, the economy has been at the centre of the election campaign.

The Partido Popular has gained support due to its proposed policies to fix the country's economic problems and reduce unemployment. The Partido Socialista Obrero Español has been critical of these policies however, accusing Mr Rajoy of planning to make severe cuts to health and education.

The voting boxes opened at 9am Sunday morning, and as this article went live, votes were still being counted.

Europe: Technocracy or democracy?

George Papandreou, the Greek prime minister and Silvio Berlusconi, his Italian counterpart, have been in a political fiddle for some time now. Mr Berlusconi has been heavily criticised for his monopoly over the Italian media and his premiership has been plagued by sex scandals. Mr Papandreou’s austerity programme led to a wave of nationwide strikes and created divisions in even the upper-most echelons of government.

Nevertheless, their recent resignations were no doubt triggered by the ultimatum put to them by euro-zone leaders at the G20 summit in Cannes: either reform your economies or clear your desks. Mr Papandreou was told to approve the latest European bail-out deal or lose his loans, while Mr Berlusconi was instructed to allow IMF supervision of his reforms.

Although the European Union (EU) has long influenced domestic policy, the intrusion of euro leaders into the internal politics of Italy and Greece is unprecedented in terms of the scale and urgency of demands. The age-old debate over whether the EU is an intergovernmental or supranational organisation has resurfaced.

As decisions are increasingly migrated to Brussels, many voters feel distanced from, and powerless before, those drafting legislation to which, as citizens, they must abide. But, if the increased powers afforded to Brussels under the Lisbon treaty weren’t enough, the very fabric with which Western nations have sewn their political structures, namely democracy, is under siege.  

Youth in Action: The gate to mobility and intercultural experience

Youth in Action (YiA) is the EU programme supporting informal education (meaning no school and teaching, no tourism, no festivals and similar official and profitable actions) of all youth – with the main purpose to get to know new people from other EU/EEA/Neighboring countries. Stage ECHOES will present to you the different types of actions for which you can easily apply.

“My guys are great - all four of them!” says Deborah Walker, the General Coordinator of the new Stage Committee, about her team

What does Deborah (26) - Scottish graduate of Edinburgh Napier University in Business Entrepreneurship, decent kick boxer and lover of dancing, motorbikes and scooters - think about her new fellows and why does she refuse to label trainees of this term stage miserable? She talked about the new Stage Committee and her plans for it.


The Stage Committee seems to be a nice place to meet many trainees and all of them will get to know you very soon. But why did you decide to run for a position there, did you have any specific intentions?
I love challenges, and I knew this would be one. I also like meeting a lot of different people, and this position definitely allows you to do that. I’m usually ridiculously organized and I knew this would be a skill I could use as general coordinator. More than any other stage position, the general coordinator requires efficient, timely and accurate problem solving skills and using these skills both excites me and allows me to do something I’m good at. Plus, who wouldn't want to be on call 20 hours a day, 7 days a week for 650 trainees!?!

Europe: Apocalypse now?

Concerns over Europe's ability to manage its sovereign debt crisis intensified this week, as political turmoil in Rome and Athens, and the stark possibility of a double dip recession, provoked panic on world markets.

The announcement that Silvio Berlusconi would step down as Italy’s prime minister once austerity measures were pushed through parliament, did not prevent a collapse of investor confidence. Rather, Italian 10-year bond yields passed the 7 per cent mark on Wednesday; a level that previously drove Portugal, Greece and Ireland to seek European bailouts. The European Central Bank (ECB) was forced to intervene and bought limited quantities of the country’s debt, which enabled bonds to rebound from previous lows.

Political chaos also characterised Athens this week, as talks to appoint a prime minister to succeed George Papandreou temporarily stalled. Greek party leaders ultimately agreed to name Lucas Papademos, a former ECB vice-president, as prime minister of a new interim government until early elections determine a permanent replacement in the first quarter of next year.

Greece: Back to Interbellum?

For two years, Greece's economy has been in a constant downswing. This does not only lead to an internal breakdown of the Greek welfare state, but furthermore plants powerful seeds for nationalistic ideas amongst EU citizens.

Nowadays, Greece finds itself in the eye of the cyclone of the worst financial crisis since the end of the Civil War in 1949, which followed the destruction suffered during the Second World War. After the fall of the military junta of 1967-1974, a period of relatively regular parliamentarian democracy commenced. The entry of Greece in the European Communities was greeted as a substantial step to European integration. In 2000, Greece was considered to meet the convergence criteria and was admitted as the 12th member of the Eurozone. On 1 January 2002 drachma (δραχμή) belonged to the past, replaced by the single currency. At that time, almost ten years ago, nobody could foresee the financial crisis that hit Europe in 2008.

Memos from Member States...

The United Kingdom: Support grows for Occupy London protest
War veterans are the latest in a long line of recruits joining the Occupy protests outside St Paul’s Cathedral in London. Such is the scale of the protest that, in a break with tradition lasting more than 800 years, the new Lord Mayor of the City of London was this week anointed at the cathedral’s south entrance rather than the building’s front steps.

The peaceful protest against economic inequality, social injustice and corporate greed began on 15 October 2011 in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York. The protestors occupy two encampments in central London in St Paul's Cathedral and Finsbury Square.

As protestors attended Remembrance Day services at St Paul's Cathedral, they were joined by former service personnel with their own list of grievances against the government. At least 15 military veterans have joined the camp in protest over their post-conflict treatment.

Esperanto – a common language for Europe?

Esperanto was created for the purpose of international communication. Throughout its history, it has been used by different social groups. However, political ideologies behind it may have hindered it to become a common European language.

At the end of the 19th century, Ludwig Zamenhof realized that language barriers were the origin of the fighting amongst his Polish, German, Yewish and Belarusian fellow citizens in his hometown Bialystok. In 1887, he therefore published the book "Unua Libro" describing basic grammatical rules and vocabulary of Esperanto: a language that should not mirror any ethnical or national belonging and thus enable a fair international communication.

And in fact, Esperanto has since then been spoken by many different kinds of social groups. In between the two World Wars, for example, Esperanto was a language widely spoken amongst French labourers. At approximately the same time, German and French Esperanto speaking members of the European Rotary Club – a beneficial club with a industrialist tradition– created a group to develop and practice the language. In 1922, Zamenhof – had he still been alive – would have cried with joy: the League of Nations considered introducing Esperanto as a worldwide official language that should be taught everywhere as a first foreign language. However, France opposed and the project failed. Considered as a minority and revolutionary language, Esperanto was soon after completely forbidden under both Hitler and Stalin. Zamenhof' s project became a distant dream again.

Annemarie Bruggink: “Go for work, go for contacts. And if it does not work, come and see us!”

Annemarie Bruggink has been the head of the Traineeship Office for six years. Even if she loves the program - unfortunately, she has never had an opportunity to become a trainee herself. However, she has been working for the Commission already during her last year of university. She started in the Commission in 1977, first in Translation, later in Operational Services where she managed the Citizenship Program. She greeted you all on your first day at the Commission and now she will tell us also some snippets of what she sees from her office at 24th floor at MADO.

Photo by Greg Smith

Stage Echoes: The European Commission Traineeship program is generally perceived as a prestigious type of internship. Thousands of young people apply every year to get this opportunity. But what are the main objectives from the side of the Commission?

Bruggink: I believe it is always useful to give a real historical overview. The aim of the Traineeship Program is to give an opportunity to young university graduates to learn about how Europe works. Either they decide to stay or not, all of them have a very concrete experience. This very idea already started in 1960, so right after institutions have been created. The first scheme started with three trainees, which, compared to the total number of staff, was already quite important. This basic idea of introducing people to things that we are doing and why we are doing them is still there. The program has expanded over years and since the mid-90s we have had about 600 trainees twice a year. Also, the number of applicants has increased, since in the mid-90s there was increase from four to six thousand applications per period. Now, due to the crisis, there are about ten thousands of them for each period.

OUT & ABOUT - Week 45

Dinner's Served! From Field to Plate, art exhibition on food production and distribution

Brussels never sleeps! Well, sometimes it does... but not this weekend! The sun is still shining and we've found a number of great events to check out, so no reason to stay in. You can learn all about food at the Dinner's Served exhibition, watch a movie at the Pink Screens Film Festival or listen to electronic tunes at Zukunft. If you prefer to get out of town, drive west and visit the medieval town of Ghent.

STAGE COMMITTEE

On Saturday, the SC will take you to Ghent for only €12 (€10 with Action Card). The trip includes the train ticket and a guided visit to the famous S.M.A.K. The plan is to explore the Ghent nightlife on Saturday night and then take the first train back at 5:24 AM on Sunday morning. You can sign up for the trip at Madou.

FOOD

Looking to satisfy your appetite? Then head to Tour & Taxis for the exhibition Dinner's Served! From Field to Plate. The project examines issues of food production and distribution through art. Expect to see installations, visual art, photographs, interactive screens and more. From November, 11, 2011 to June, 3, 2012. Admission: €12.

MUSIC

Tour & Taxis is also the setting for Zukunft at Magic Mirrors. On November 12, Zukunft will present the British duo Loose Fit. Daniel Willis and Johnny Smith will heat up the Belgian winter breeze and provide you with sweet memories to help you cope with the last 41 days of the year.

If you decided to join the Stage Committee on the trip to Ghent, you may end up at the I LOVE TECHNO festival. The line-up includes established DJs as well as up-and-coming talent, including Boys Noize, The Subs, Steve Aoki, Paul Kalkbrenner and Fake Blood. Tickets: € 50.00.

BARS & CLUBS

If you haven't been to Madame Moustache yet, this is the weekend to go. Friday you can watch Trotsky Tulsky play and on Saturday there is a 50's Jamboree by Mr Slick & Gamma GT. Mr Slick specialises in rockabilly, surf and garage and his sets may, or may not include tracks by Link Wray, Ronnie Dawson, The Sting-Rays, The Rondells, Carl Perkins and The Atlantics. On Sunday the party starts early, Cuir as Folk begins at 8PM. Cuir as Folk is for Boys and Girls and their friendly friends with Drag kings, Drag Queens and Live performances on stage.

FILM FEST

Genres d’à côté celebrates gender diversity and sexual minorities at the Pink Screens Film Festival. The 10th edition, which is held from November 10 to 19, includes more than 80 films on gay, lesbian, queer, trans, feminist and gender themes. On Thursday, Pink Screens kicks off with a screening of Romeos (Germany, 2011) and Circumstance (Iran, 2011), followed by the Let’s Sheherazade! Persian Pussies Party. In 10 days, Pink Screens will treat you to an abundance of films, exhibitions and parties including the not-to-be-missed Pink Night closing party. Tickets: € 5, students € 3.50.