During a two-day visit to the headquarters in Strasbourg, Carina Autengruber, President of the European Youth Forum (YFJ), met with top Council of Europe officials to discuss how the YFJ and the Council of Europe can pursue their tradition of long-standing and reciprocal co-operation to ensure youth work and youth policies continue to empower young people and engage them in the development of democratic, inclusive and peaceful societies in Europe.

“So many young people’s apprenticeship of democracy, human rights and the rule of law starts with the Council of Europe”, said Gabriela Battaini-Dragoni, Deputy Secretary General, “even in the current difficult financial situation, the Council of Europe remains key in spreading these values to young people, especially thanks to its European Youth Centres in Strasbourg and Budapest and to the European Youth Foundation”. Carina Autengruber underlined that the Council of Europe is the only international organisation worldwide that invites young people to have an equal say in decision making, a practice that, if more widely replicated at other levels, would encourage more young people to take a stand to ensure their voices are heard. “An untold number of young people have been disenfranchised through austerity, social exclusion and high youth unemployment”, said Anna Widegren, YFJ Secretary General to Claudia Luciani, Director of Human Dignity, Equality and Governance, when presenting the YFJ’s project to mobilise young people to vote in the European elections in May 2019.

Throughout the visit, the delegation reiterated the importance of the Council of Europe youth sector’s work for the millions of young people the YFJ represents in Europe and for young people in general. Snežana Samardžić-Marković, Director General of Democracy, responded by saying how important it is that the YFJ brings to the attention of and guides its members in the implementation of the Council of Europe’s standards. The Director General spoke in particular of the recommendation on youth work which was indispensable to governments and civil society organisations alike in the development of effective youth policies. Snežana Samardžić-Marković also stressed the essential role of the European Youth Foundation in supporting youth organisations in their first steps to implementing European projects, including smaller NGOs with less experience.

Referring to the co-operation between the Council of Europe youth sector and the YFJ in 2018 on the “shrinking space for youth civil society”, Matjaz Gruden, Director of Democratic Participation, observed that the YFJ’s research on the subject was crucial to the youth sector as it provided concrete data on how youth organisations are suffering from this phenomenon and would inform future work.

The YFJ also had a meeting with Ambassador Paruyr Hovhannisyan, Permanent Representative of Armenia to the Council of Europe and Chair of the Committee of Ministers’ Rapporteur Group on Education, Culture, Sport, Youth and Environment. Ambassador Hovhannisyan was interested to learn more about the YFJ, its activities and priorities, as well as about the mutually reinforcing role of the two organisations – Council of Europe and YFJ – in furthering youth work and youth policy in Europe.

The YFJ delegation also met Antje Rothemund, Head of the Youth Department, to discuss concrete co-operation issues.

Carina Autengruber and Anna Widegren were accompanied by Alfonso Aliberti, Policy and Youth Advocacy Team Leader.