The Council of Europe reaffirmed the importance of civil society within the process of enhancing democracy and human rights in the final declaration of the 4th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Council of Europe, held in May 2023. The Summit also decided to introduce the concept of youth perspectives in the Organisation’s intergovernmental and other deliberations, considering that “youth participation in decision-making processes improves the effectiveness of public policies and strengthens democratic institutions through open dialogue”.
In this context, the European Youth Foundation, whose main goal is to enhance international youth co-operation in the spirit of peace, human rights, and fundamental freedoms, has intensified its actions in devising ways to enlarge the co-operation with youth organisations to ensure their contribution to the Council of Europe’s mission. One of the measures decided by the Programming Committee on Youth in this respect in November 2024 was to increase the structural grants for international youth organisations and networks in 2024-2025 by 23,4% of the annual grant.
This increase was motivated by the wish to enable international youth organisations and networks to increase their contribution to the priorities of the Council of Europe in the field of youth and beyond (i.e. contributing with youth perspectives to other sectors’ agendas) and to further develop their actions that mainstream human rights approaches.
Beneficiary organisations were invited to use this increase in the structural grant, for example, to be active in deliberations of the different sectors of the Council of Europe, to further their internal processes on increasing accessibility in youth work, strengthening gender equality, increasing youth participatory structures, or mainstreaming its environmental policies.
The EYF budget used for this purpose was of 185 830 euro.