The Bureaux of the European Steering Committee for Youth (CDEJ) and of the Advisory Council on Youth (CCJ) held their first meetings of the year online on 20 and 21 January 2022.
In their joint meeting, the newly recruited campaign co-ordinator for the 2022 youth campaign “Democracy Here. Democracy Now” (provisional title), which is to be launched in March on the occasion of the first biannual statutory meetings of 2022, updated the Bureaux on the preparations.
Youth has featured frequently among the priorities of the presidencies of the Committee of Ministers over the past few years, the Bureaux were informed this will continue with the current Italian, and future Irish, Icelandic and Latvian presidencies.
The Director of Democratic Participation discussed the progress of youth-related issues in the Committee of Ministers’ Rapporteur Group on Education, Culture, Sport, Youth and Environment.
The Head of the Youth Department remarked that 2020-21 was the first ever term of office of the Advisory Council on Youth during which the statutory committees had been unable to meet in person due to the pandemic. Information was also provided on ideas for celebrating the 50th anniversary of the youth sector in 2022, including the proposal to create a new network of youth sector alumni.
The manager of the partnership between the European Commission and the Council of Europe in the field of youth presented the biennial programme which was agreed by the two institutions in December 2021. The youth partnership will benefit from a 33% increase in funding from the European Union in 2022. Implementation of the European Youth Work Agenda, the European Year of Youth and the Council of Europe youth campaign are amongst the priorities.
The Bureaux finalised the agendas of the next plenary meetings which will be held from 21 to 23 March. It is hoped the health situation will have improved by then and that the youth statutory committees will be able to attend the meetings, and also the launch of the youth campaign, in person in Strasbourg.
For more information on the youth sector statutory committees and on their decisions.
