In the framework of the project Youth revitalising democracy, the Council of Europe Youth Department organised the seminar on engament of young people in political life, entitled Let’s get political. The seminar brought together eighty participants, young representatives of political parties and their youth branches, national youth councils and youth organisations between 28 and 30 November 2023 in the European Youth Centre Budapest.
The seminar explored the hurdles faced by young people in their political engagement in the current political European context marked by introduction of a youth perspective in the Council of Europe intergovernmental work and generally the follow-up to the Reykjavik summit of the Council of Europe. The upcoming framework for a youth perspective in the Council of Europe along with the work of the institution to engage young people in political life were introduced by Ambassador Francesca Camilleri Vettiger, permanent representative of Malta to the Council of Europe and Tobias Flessenkemper, head of the Youth Department of the Council of Europe.
Nuria Segués Daina, member of the Parliament of Andorra, and Denis Gratz, member of the Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina discussed with participants their pathways to politics and how their work in national parliaments supports the engagement of young people.
The programme of the seminar featured a discussion with Gwendoline Delbo-Corfield, member of the European Parliament, Rareş Voicu, board member of the European Youth Forum and Sari Ungvàri, human rights activist on the ways ahead to fight the stigma of being political, to create spaces for democratic dialogue and engagement, as well as to envisage solutions to create a fully democratic and human rights based Europe.
In the last day of the seminar, the participants elaborated proposals for further collective action to be undertaken together with the Youth Department. The proposals include the introduction of youth quotas on electoral lists, as well as lowering the voting age to 16 Europe-wide, with a action day on 12 August 2024 to raise awareness, the creation of guidelines for the inclusion of under-represented young people in processes of decision making and political participation, as well as trainings and support measures that particularly address young ambassadors of political participation among minority groups.
The seminar was closed by the Spyros Papadatos, chair of the Advisory Council on Youth and Igor Jesih, member of the bureau of the European Steering Committee on Youth who committed to take further the proposals of the seminar in the work of the Statutory bodies and recalled that change needs first to be imagined, and that seminars such as Let’s get political allow us to imagine and re-imagine politics that are for all.
