From November 11th to the 13th, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD or OCDE in French) headquarters in Paris hosted the Youth Summit on Youth Employment, which took place parallel to the Paris Intergovernmental Summit of the EU Members States on the same issue.

As member of the Comité Directeur of AEGEE-Europe, I was able to represent our organization at this summit thanks to the invitation issued by the European Youth Forum (YFJ). Unfortunately, no members from our Youth (un)Employment project could come, because at the same time, preparations for the Y-Vote convention on Youth Employment were taking place in Agrigento.

The Youth Summit in Paris was special since, for the first time, it brought the two main non-governmental actors in the field of employment for young people together: trade unions and national youth councils. Why they had not managed to sit down to draft a common strategy, when the destruction of jobs in Europe is a problem for several years already, is still a mystery to me.

The discussions covered different fields, among which a big highlight was an update on implementation of the Youth Guarantee Scheme established by the European Union. The Youth Guarantee aims to provide all young Europeans with a job, a traineeship or an education opportunity within the next four months after ending studies or finishing their contract. Even if far from the estimation of 21 billion Euros that are needed for the scheme, the 6 billion Euros provided by the EU can have a big impact as a first step. Therefore, it was quite disheartening to see that the preparations are quite behind schedule in many member states, specially among those with higher youth unemployment rates. They are supposed to be ready by the end of December.

When implementing the Scheme, we saw how some countries clearly modify the target groups and risk to subvert the actual spirit of the proposal. The youth organisation has always claimed a role in deciding and monitoring the implementation of the Youth Guarantee; but this co-decision power has seldom been granted, and in many countries the implementation plan will be prepared last-minute, in a closed office without input from the affected groups.

The French minister of Employment, addressing the participants of the Youth Summit.

Another issue of the summit was the importance of focusing attention on inclusion of the NEETs (people who are Not in Education, Employment or Training) which is a population in great risk of social exclusion. The percentage of NEETs in society vary enormously from country to country, but because most countries do not include them in Unemployment statistics, they are a hidden group in big risk of exclusion.

At the same time at the summit, the presidents of most EU-countries met in Paris receiving huge media coverage, but little results. The fact that this extraordinary meeting had been called, seems a very effective way to present to the public opinion how “much” the governments care about one of the most pressing problems in Europe. But the participants at the summit would have liked to see more tangible results than front-page pictures of shaking hands, press releases, and the scheduling of a next meeting in Rome for Spring. A call for less talk and more action was the common message of almost all interventions and during the street action that was held on Tuesday.

EU Commissioner László Andor updated the participants on the outcome of the Intergovernmental Summit.

At least our Youth Summit is the start of a new period of collaboration among youth stakeholders. And we will keep ourselves working to improve the problem of youth employment. At the same time we will try to ensure that from now until the next Summit in Rome, advancements are made and no more time is lost. The next summit will take place in Spring, in the middle of the campaign for the EU elections. Political leaders will definitely plan to stage themselves carefully to the media, in order to take political advantage. But we will also make sure to use the media coverage to make our voices heard and denounce any failure in using all the available resources to fight the Youth Unemployment crisis.

Once I was back in Brussels, I went to the European Parliament to attend a Round Table Discussion on the quality of internships, which is a very relevant issue in Europe and especially in Brussels, which has a big population of interns. The issue of unpaid internships (which is an opportunity only available to those who have enough money to cover some months without income), and the intern positions that don’t provide enough learning and training (just providing employers with low-waged workers), were among the most mentioned problems of the current situation.

Both events’ information was sent regularly to Agrigento, where it fed into the discussions of the Y-Vote convention, and where they were transformed into recommendations that will be passed to the new European Parliament to be elected in May 2014. Moreover, it gave me some ideas to reboot our Youth (un)Employment project that has been dormant in the last few months. If you are motivated to contribute to solving one of the biggest challenges in Europe nowadays, why not join the project? Please contact the team at yue@aegee.org, or answer to the Open Call that will be launched soon on the ANNOUNCE-L mailing list.

Written by: Miguel Gallardo Albajar, member of the Comité Directeur

Original article

Y Vote 2009

 Y Vote 2009 is at the same time the AEGEE project that gained most visibility among the media and policy-makers in recent years and the AEGEE project that dealt most explicitly with solely European Union affairs. This was inevitably made possible by the grants of the European Commission Youth in Action fund for youth projects. In brief, Y Vote 2009 was aimed to encourage and empower young people aged 18-24 to cast their vote for the European Parliament elections taking place 4 to 7 June, 2009. In the 2004 European Parliament elections, 67% of the people aged 18-24 did not vote. We focused on elevating this rather bad achievement. Of course, voter turnout rate can, and should, be higher at all times, but here we talk about the first-time voters, the future electorate, and the future leaders of Europe.

Details about how did we work this out in practice will follow, but let’s first look at the actual voter turnout rates and compare them to previous EP elections. In 2004, the previous elections mobilized 45-47% of the EU voters. We detect a spiraling trend, because in 2009, in total 43% of the voters headed to the polls, and every single 5 years the turnout rate falls by on average 3%.

So at the end of the day, was the project then not successful? I am absolutely convinced that such a question is impossible to answer objectively. One has to bear in mind that we dealt with possibly the biggest conundrum of those interested in the future of Europe. AEGEE turned towards the very essence of EU integration – that European decision-making is not only for its citizens, but also with its citizens.

From the outset the Y Vote 2009 project resembled the heart and mind of its founder, and later Project Manager, Dragan Stojanovski. It was first of all a genuine product from young, idealist students. One can see this unmistakably in the final manifesto, the Youth Agenda 2009, that rounded up the outcomes of a real cycle of one-week conferences. Furthermore, it was a product of young people who truly care for the European story, and who believe in active contribution to society for the sake of democracy.

Original article

The whole campaign started with a launching conference in Vienna, September 2008. On some 15 big one-week conferences thereafter we visited student cities across the EU. It was stimulating that in each city we were welcomed by local members. So, the campaign moved completely within the realm of possibilities that AEGEE offers. Every such conference tackled a specific theme, for example, Creativity and Innovation, Education, or EU on the world stage, and on each of these conferences the experts in our network were invited to lead workshops for participants (who were, by the way, both members and non-members). In the workshops (small group work) and panel discussions with Members of European Parliament, university professors, and other leaders the participants got plenty of room to share their thoughts. What is more, it was a time to have ferocious Oxford debates, display their uncertainties about a lack of knowledge about a topic, ask questions to panelists, develop communication skills… Thanks to the social program and cultural, touristic activities everybody had the chance to feel comfortable enough to make all these things happen.

Participants got to know Y Vote 2009 in various ways, mainly through our blog, e-social networks, and following sound cooperation with other International Youth NGO’s like BEST, and the European Youth Forum (umbrella organisation AEGEE is a member of). Aside of this participant-empowerment dimension of the project, the other paramount challenge we had to square up to was to find people, young and old, EU citizen, and then to engage in dialogue with them or simply to catch their eye with our message ‘Y Vote? Why not?’. One way or another you have to find those voters, which can be hard if you planned a street action in the open air just when it starts raining.

More importantly, a street interview, or ‘canvassing’ in jargon, is also a reality check. Talking to random people made us realize things and learn about the increasing complexity of a globalizing world, its impact on individuals, and the environment in which young people are growing up, fully with its own values. We learnt quickly that you have to meet them further than halfway–the message of voting is important, and so is the means of getting attention. This came out as well during the UK Tour, a special part of the project dedicated to the United Kingdom, widely known to be by far the most eurosceptic EU member state. While getting attention about EU affairs is assumed to be most difficult in eurosceptic countries, this did not entirely ring true for our efforts in the UK. There we could tour the city centers in our mobile Y Vote van, drawing the attention of all passers-by as we blew balloons with our slogan, we screamed, and the van’s speakers boosted loud music.

Original article

To highlight one last aspect of the campaign is not difficult to choose. Campaigning in the 21st century cannot do anymore without presence on the internet. Millions of people have a profile on social networks like YouTube and Facebook – and it does not take a genius to see that these are opportunities that can generate extremely high levels of interest with a relatively very small effort. All year long, from different parts of Europe, from different Y Vote events, material was gathered to be uploaded little time later, video-editing, funny and thought-provoking video clips that make democracy truly reach out again into households. And it was marvelous to see Facebook statuses of hundreds of friends show ‘I voted for European elections’, not to mention the on-line comments on the Y Vote 2009 performance on Europarl.tv’s Election Night broadcast. Yet still not everybody has replaced older-fashioned communication for e-social media. One sunny spring day in 2009 the president of AEGEE, Dragan Stojanovski, got a best wishes message from the President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano. By telegram.

By the way, the Youth Agenda 2009, the manifesto that outlines all that young people desire from the presently sitting members of European Parliament, can be sent to you by the author upon request. Working diligently on Y Vote events, together, towards the biggest democratic happening on our continent, being increasingly more excited during the last three weeks leading up to the elections, has something fantastic about it. Something that voluntary work deserves.

Written by Thijs de Wolff, AEGEE-Utrecht and Y Vote Content & Formats Manager

Originally published in Key To Europe 2009-2010