The third Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum took place in Poznan, Poland from 28 to 30 November. The president of AEGEE-Europe Alfredo Sellitti and the President of AEGEE-Yerevan Shushan Khachatryan participated in the forum for the first time on behalf of AEGEE.

The Civil Society Forum is an integral part of the Eastern Partnership programme. Every year it is held in a country currently presiding over the Council of the European Union. The main task of the event was to discuss problems of non-governmental organisations and civil societies in the Eastern Partnership countries.  The discussion was held in a large circle of activists, community workers, experts and politicians.

This year the speakers and participants highlighted the importance of the efforts the EU Polish Presidency invests in Eastern Partnership in general and the respective Civil Society Forum in particular. Over 300 delegates from 150 organisations assembled.

Four working groups currently exist in frames of the forum and they are:

WG 1. Democracy, human rights, good governance and stability

WG 2. Economic integration and convergence with EU policies

WG 3. Environment, climate change and energy security

WG 4. Contacts between people

AEGEE was involved in the forth Working Group. One of the progresses of this working group was the formation of Youth subgroup, where there have been many discussions about the future activities mainly addressing the cooperation of youth in Eastern Partnership Countries and EU member states.

The forum elected the new steering committee which would coordinate the forum until November 2012.

AEGEE emphasises the importance of participation in this forum as AEGEE locals in Eastern Partnership Countries are an integral part of our AEGEE network. Furthermore, AEGEE plans a number of activities to address young people in these countries of its focus area (Bridging Europe) and the new “Eastern Partnership Project” initiated by AEGEE members. Consequently, as a part of the forum we think that more youth NGO-s should be given the opportunity to be involved in the forum and contribute to the discussions of the working group both on local and European level.

Written by Shushan Khachatryan, AEGEE-Yerevan

From 20-21 October 2011 society delegates and decision makers from the Eastern Partnership and EU countries gathered in Yerevan, Armenia at the Congress organized by the European Movement International (EMI) to discuss the topic “Fostering Civil Society’s role for further European integration in the Eastern Partnership”. With a strong will to deepen the network and roots of civil society, Alfredo Sellitti, President of AEGEE Europe, and Eastern Partnership Project team members – Daryna Skryl (AEGEE-Dnipropetrovsk) and Shushan Khachaturyan (AEGEE-Yerevan), as well as Yulia Barmakova (AEGEE-Kyiv) and AEGEE-Yerevan members participated in the Congress, actively contributing to working out the conclusions.

Issues related to aims and objectives of Eastern Partnership Project launched by AEGEE members were intensively discussed during three parallel workshops at the Congress with the following outcome:

–       Non-formal education provided by youth NGOs should be considered as an important element in bridging the gaps in the formal education system, fully recognized and adequately supported both financially and legally.

–       It was admitted that there are still obstacles during registration of youth NGOs, operation and expression of their opinions, and the difficulties in generating interest among young people who have been raised in totally state-led systems. A Possible solution to these problems lies in alliance-building among NGOs working on similar projects, which would increase their efficiency and contribute to foster a dialogue with the Government.

–       Participants proposed a set of recommendations towards a fight against visa restrictions, namely encouragement of information exchange on established practices; encouraging youth NGOs to establish/join alliances advocating visa-free actions; asking the European Union member states to grant “home student status” to all students coming from the European Partnership countries; asking Armenia and Azerbaijan to abolish visa restrictions for EU citizens.

During the Congress AEGEE members used this opportunity to inform participants about Eastern Partnership Project and presented all their prospectives and on-going actions. Meanwhile in discussions with possible partners and stakeholders it was concluded that Eastern Partnership Project needs to be a part of Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum in order to bring more efficiency to active citizenship development and visa-facilitation for young people. Cooperation with Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum could be a great achievement for the Project because of the opportunity to lobby for its aims and this issue was supposed to be discussed at the third meeting of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum in Poznan, Poland on 28-30th of November 2011.

written by Daryna Skryl, AEGEE Dnipropetrovsk