Interview to Pierre Vinck

How did you decide the theme of this year’s jeep?

One and a half years ago Mr. Tenconi contacted me inviting me and other teachers to a journey to Milan, to the expo and proposing to link the jeep with the themes of expo. Usually it was a longer process, over the past years the Jeep project has had themes that were strongly connected with politics, they were also very actual so that the students that were participating to the project could feel fully involved and could easily find information; six months before the official start of the jeep project I typed out a number of topics and sent them to the colleagues and we then decided among them.

Is Europe working for sustainability?

Europe is certainly doing much for sustainability but it has a duality, his interest is divided between his own economy and the help of countries in difficulty. This duality is also present in the Expo, on one side the great theme of sustainability, the research on how can we use our resources and energy, how can we reduce the waste of food and water and on the other side commerce and consumption, some pavilions are really focused on the main theme but others are just advertising the products of their nation. Europe is a giant economic power and should try to do even more for sustainability, because that what we do can never be enough and it is of the greatest importance.

What do you think about letting other countries enter the European Union?

There should be some conditions, some strict conditions to admit new countries in the European Union in order to maintain the peace and the balance that have been created. As a matter of fact the biggest value of Europe is that we didn’t had war, we were able to keep peace for many years, what has never happened before. We can’t admit countries whose economy is in disastrous conditions otherwise this would create grate problems in the European economy and could generate some tensions between the nations. We should help the poor countries with money so that we can improve their economy and when they have demonstrated to the EU that they are going to work to improve their countries, we can let them enter in the union.