Student’s star turn

Date: 20/03/1997

Teenagers played the roles of the EU's leading political figures at the Palais d'Egmont last week when a group of 16- to

18-year-old school pupils was invited by the Brussels-Europe liaison office to try their hand at negotiating in a mock Intergovernmental Conference on the EU's future.

The students took the parts of prime ministers, other politicians and officials in a session which discussed the problems involved in changing the Maastricht Treaty.

But who was the rather articulate and dignified youngster who took the star role as European Parliament president in the discussions on the employment chapter to be written into the revised treaty?

She was Nabela Benaïssa, who has spent more than four years campaigning to establish the whereabouts of her sister Loubna. As the whole of Belgium knows, that campaign ended tragically earlier this month when Loubna's body was finally discovered.

Nabela took part in the IGC experiment just days after her sister was buried by the family in Morocco.