Submitted by Maastricht University on Fri, 03/20/2020 - 16:02
NORTIA is delighted to announce the winners of our Student Essay Competition on “50 years of European foreign policy cooperation”
The winners of our NORTIA student competition 2020 are
Patricia Senge and Mathias Weidinger
with their essay
“MEPs’ Receptiveness to Third Country Interests in the Framework of ACP-EU Parliamentary Diplomacy”.
Patricia Senge (Maastricht University / University of Oxford) researches European foreign policy, particularly European human rights relations with China. She holds a Bachelor in European Studies from Maastricht University. After interning at the Asia-Europe Foundation in Singapore she assisted the German Human Rights Council team as a political trainee at the United Nations in Geneva. Currently, she is pursuing her Master degree in European Politics at the University of Oxford.
Mathias Weidinger (Maastricht University & UNU-MERIT) researches how people respond to adversities such as poverty, climate change, hazardous working conditions or political upheaval. He holds a Bachelor in European Studies from Maastricht University and is currently finalising his Research Master in Economics as well as his MSc in Public Policy (Social Protection) in Maastricht. His thesis investigates the effects of global warming on agricultural child labour incidence and household welfare in rural Nigeria.
We congratulate our winners to this achievement!
We also congratulate the following two candidates, whose essays have been selected to be published via the NORTIA website:
Silvia Molino (UCL) for her essay “Geo-Economics the European Way: A Qualitative Analysis of the EU’s Strategy: Connecting Europe and Asia”.
Silvia holds a Masters degree in European Politics & Policy from University College London (UCL). Here, she focused on geo-economics and the identity of the European Union as an international actor, with emphasis on the trade-foreign policy nexus and policy coherence within the Union’s External Action. Silvia is also particularly interested in the impact of Brexit on the sense of European identity of EU nationals, a topic on which she conducted original research as part of her undergraduate thesis. Silvia currently works as a Public Affairs and Strategic Communications analyst in London.
Mirai Neumann (KU Leuven) for her work on “EU’s external cultural diplomacy vis- à-vis Japan: The Implementation of European External Cultural Policy by the EU Delegation to Japan compared to the External Cultural Policy of Germany”.
Mirai Neumann graduated from the KU Leuven with a Master degree in European Studies, where she was particularly interested in European cultural policy and European foreign policy. She holds two Bachelor degrees from the University of Heidelberg, namely in Ethnology and East-Asian Studies. After interning at the European Court of Auditors, she is currently working in the European Parliament as an parliamentary assistant.