WE-MEP2016: Europe in your backyard!In November 2016, a project team formed by the Montesquieu Institute and the MEP for You Foundation will be responsible for organizing the first MEP Interregional Conference for Western Europe, which will be held in the The Hague Area. In this application, we request an Erasmus+ KA3 subsidy to be able to realize the Interregional Session of the MEP in The Hague (WEMEP16) and several main activities that are directly related to this conference. Before, during and following these MEP Session, we will organise several main activities that activate youth to participate at the European level of policy-making, facilitate a dialogue with decision makers at multiple policy levels and enhance the legitimacy of short-term and long-term policy reform. This conference also links directly to the National MEP-session in The Netherlands and the International MEP-session in Arnhem/Maastricht/Brussels, for which an KA3 subsidy is also requested. Young people from all over Europe would like to express what kind of Europe they want to live in and thus get the opportunity to formulate their demands on European policy. In WEMEP we focus on the own environment of the youngsters. This project aims at engaging young citizens in European politics and at facilitating a structured dialogue between young people and policy makers. By organising an interregional conference of the Model European Parliament (MEP) we learn the students how EU-politics and international cooperation is influencing their day-to-day lives. We thereby encourage them to reflect on the main question of this MEP-project; “how does Europe influence my own living environment?”. By giving them both the cognitive tools and the social skills necessary to convince policy makers, we want to stimulate them to take the floor in politics and policy making at different levels.Therefore, it is important for young Europeans to learn and practice how the political process of the EU works. The best way to do this is to let young scholars feel what it is like to be a Member of the European Parliament when meanwhile they discuss their policy proposals with experts, policy makers and real Members of the European Parliament! The participants to the WEMEP16-project are approximately 80 European scholars in the age of 16-18 with all types of backgrounds, split up in national delegations. It is inherent to the project that gender, ethnic or social-economic background cannot in any way be a limitation for participating in this project. We apply out diversity standards both to (future) participants and to members of the organizational staff and invited academic experts, policy makers and politicians.At the International Session of the MEP in Budapest (spring 2016), WEMEP16 will be officially announced through the launching of a public consultation (Greenbook procedure) in which all future participants, schools, local MEP organizations, partner organizations, policy makers, politicians, academics, citizens and other interested stakeholders in the entire EU are asked to come up with societal issues and policy dilemmas that need to be addressed by the MEP. This public consultation will be an important ground for choosing the committee subjects for the WE-MEP16 conference, but the outcomes of this conference will also be important input for the International Session in Arnhem/Maastricht/Brussels (IN-MEP17) and for the related Treaty of Maastricht 2017. This conference can thus be seen as an important Western European consultation for this treaty. This Session itself follows the methodology that was developed and improved in the 25 years that MEP exists today. MEP is a peer-to-peer and non-formal learning experience, in which the participants learn from the start to run an entire complex simulation game on their own. In the simulation game, participants take the role of Members of the EP, representing their country in one of the five parliamentary committees. This simulation game will provide the young people an opportunity to actively participate in debates on European issues at a European level, based on which they are fully equipped to express themselves in a content driven dialogue between young people and policy makers. Reflection on personal level, during group reflections and in learning couples, will be an important part of the project.The MEP is keen on its value ‘learning by doing’ and assures that all our participants with various types of backgrounds will learn that the EU democratic deficits can be rectified through the citizens’ awareness, commitment and proactive attitude. All countries involved in this first WE-MEP conference committed to an annual cyclus of the WE-MEP project, which will be organized in another member state every year. By repeating, every year young people will experience that they have the possibility, power, rights and duty to influence EU politics. Right now and in their future!