Simulation of the EU Council of Environment Ministers, Hands-on EU environmental policy
The chance to be an EU environment minister for a day – the 18-year-old student Anna Röhm was lucky enough to have just that opportunity. With the rest of the class at her school in Berlin, she took part in a simulation of the meeting of the EU’s Council of Environment Ministers.

Oct 4, Europe: The simulation to mark the informal meeting of the EU’s environment ministers allowed the students of the high-level politics class at Berlin’s Heinrich-von-Stephan school to play the part of the Council of Ministers. Eighteen-year-old Anna Röhm was one of them. She reports that this is a topic that galvanises her generation. "The environment is a topic that my class is always discussing."
Acting as minister
Firstly, during a workshop, the students spent several hours familiarising themselves with the European institutions and the most important areas of the EU’s environmental policy. Then they began their simulation of the meeting of the environment ministers. The young people slipped into the shoes of the EU’s ministers of the environment. Their task? To find a way of reducing plastic consumption throughout the EU. They also had to find ways of making solid waste management more sustainable.
At the meetings of the EU’s Council of Ministers, the ministers responsible for one particular policy area come together to consult and agree on a common line within their specific policy field. The meeting is chaired by the minister from the country that currently holds the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
Experiencing the dynamics of the EU first hand
