EU directors general for youth have underlined dialogue with youth as the main vehicle for improving the situation of young people in the EU. Meeting at Brdo pri Kranju on Monday, the participants discussed the future of EU youth policy and the working methods for the next ten years.
"Young people are key to our future and their voice must not only be heard but also taken properly into consideration," said Slovenia's Zorko Skvor, the chairman of the meeting. The participants set out to develop guidelines which will be presented to the EU ministers at the Education, Youth and Culture Council in May.
Today's discussion was based on the outcomes of the Youth Event, a meeting attended by more than 150 young participants from EU members, EFTA countries and Western Balkans countries, which took place at the weekend.
"By connecting both events, we want to include youth and their ideas in the discussion of the directors general," Skvor told the press after a two-day meeting of the directors general. Apart from the debate, the officials were today also addressed by Slovenian Education Minister Milan Zver.
Odile Quintin, director general of the Education and Culture Directorate at the European Commission, agreed. "Dialogue is an important part of our partnership with young people in drawing up policies related to them," she said.
Quintin commended Slovenia's focus on disadvantaged youth. "Unemployment among young people stands at 17%, which means that [EU members] failed to achieve improvement in the field of employability of young people. What is more, as much as one quarter of young people live on the brink of poverty, which is a very worrying fact for EU states," she warned.
Quintin also outlined the main questions that needed answers; should the current system, based on participation and employment of young people, remain as it is, or should it be extended with other challenges, including globalisation and demography.
"What is important now is to set the long-term priorities for the next period of youth policy," she stressed.
More articles from this issue:
Archive
|