YOUTH EXPRESS NETWORK Maison des Associations 1A place des Orphelins 67000 STRASBOURG France Tel: +33 3 88 35 37 45 E-mail : y-e-n@wanadoo.fr Site: www.youthexpressnetwork.com Strasbourg, 21st of February 2018 Dear Member of the European Parliament, Dear Member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe,
In 2017, Youth Express Network (Y-E-N), a network of 30 local youth organisations, which work on social inclusion of young people with fewer opportunities in 22 European countries, coordinated the project “TOG(AE)THER in Europe: Living, working and shaping Europe together” financially supported by the Erasmus + programme of the European Commission and the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe. The project aimed at advocating and lobbying for the social inclusion and access to social rights of young people in Europe first by encouraging young people in redefining their identity as a young person living in Europe and their place in society and secondly by providing them a space to meet and dialogue with policy-makers. This is why the Network decided to run this project under the Key Action 3 of the Erasmus+ programme: Structured Dialogue – Meetings between young people and decision-makers. During this project, we learnt that young people are ready and willing to share their ideas and needs of the present and future. They want to be involved in the decision-making process and they have the competences to do it. At the same time, we, together with the young people and participants, were disappointed to find out that no member of the European Parliament came to meet with them to listen to their needs and ideas or engage into dialogue with them for the last activity of the project: “Shaping Europe together” that took place in October 2017 in Strasbourg. The invitation was sent 2 months prior to the event to 60 European decision-makers (MEPs and PACE members). The meeting was organised on 5th of October 2017 at the end of the European Parliamentary session week in Strasbourg.
Structured Dialogue is a means of mutual communication between young people and decision-makers in order to make young people’s voice heard in shaping European policies and is one of the main objective of the European Union in the field of youth. This relevant priority of the EU cannot be achieved only in large-scale conferences organised during the Trio Presidencies of the Council of the European Union where only privileged young people can meet decisionmakers. Structured dialogue between young people and policy makers is also a key action of the Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission. “TOG(AE)THER in Europe: Living, working and shaping Europe together” was financially supported by the French National Agency of the Erasmus + programme (KA3). The fact that the MEPs didn’t honor the invitation, transformed the envisioned dialogue into a monologue of young people and created frustrations and mistrust in policy-makers. This is not a great result keeping in mind that the European Parliamentary elections are scheduled in 2019 and that one of the European Commission’s objectives with the Erasmus + programme 2018 is to encourage more young people vote. Young people are said to represent the future, but we, as representatives of Youth Express Network, believe that they need to be the actors of the present too. In order to do that, members of the European Parliament, local and national authorities need to give them the space, the opportunity and when necessary the support to participate in and influence decisions. In this sense, Youth Express Network wishes to meet you and present to you the project’s results and our future follow-up actions. Please contact us at your earliest convenience to schedule a meeting in Strasbourg. Mirela LUPU,
Gaia CICCONE,
President
Board member