YFACTOR. 10 recommendations. where is y our future? putting youth on the EU agenda. #yfactor

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1 YFACTOR where is y our future? Report of the 2 nd youth conference of the European Committee of the Regions recommendations putting youth on the EU agenda #yfactor EUROPEAN UNION Committee of the Regions

2 YFACTOR where is y our future? The Conference YFactor: where is [y]our future? Putting youth on the EU agenda was the second youth conference organised by the European Committee of the Regions (CoR). A team of young professionals, employed as trainees in the CoR administration, took the lead in programming and preparing the conference. The speakers participating at the conference included highlevel representatives from European institutions, academia and civil society. The event welcomed over 150 students, trainees and young professionals, young leaders, members of the European Parliament, CoR members, decision makers from the EU institutions and representatives from various activist and research organisations. The conference aimed presenting European decision makers with a number of proposals related to the most salient and decisive issues for the young Europeans: lack of jobs and concerns about youth (un)employment; youth s disinterest in the EU politics and the polarization of the EU citizenship; young people s concerns about environmental degradation and short-term policies, in relation to the need for sustainable development and growth. Drafted in a participatory co-creation process, these proposals were voted upon by the attendees of the conference in the closing session and presented to representatives from the Committee of the Regions who will share these proposals to other EU institutions and interested stakeholders.

3 10 recommendations putting youth on the EU agenda Proposals drafted and adopted by the participants of the Y-Factor conference on 5 February ON YOUTH (UN)EMPLOYMENT 1. Create specific definitions of the terms internship, traineeship and voluntary work at the European level. 2. Formulate an internship programme for young low-skilled people with basic-level or no education. 3. Boosting the recognition of non-formal learning with support from the EU institutions. 4. More flexible benefit programmes for new entrepreneurs to improve labour market integration and create a European Silicon Valley ON EU CITIZENSHIP AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION 5. Provide EU funding for better and more inclusive policies so that Europe Direct centres can create networks to reach all young people. 6. Deliver EU funding for more education on democracy and citizenship including pan-european election simulations for teenagers. 7. Involve more young people in politics through increasing political education in all Member States. 8. Create a programme for students aged 10 to 18, immersing them into a new society, culture and language, to broaden their minds and to boost their sense of European identity. ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 9. Stimulate green economy packages within EU legislation starting with the public sector through mandatory green public procurement. 10. Create a platform for local initiatives and socially responsible producers and to be used as best practices. Promote idea that alternative consumption can be competitive via funding innovative companies. The Y-Factor conference team presenting the conference conclusions to Markku Markkula, newly elected President of the European Committee of the Regions

4 REPORT OPENING SESSION» Eleonora Wäktare, Journalist and President of the Alumni Association of the College of Europe» Jiř í Buriánek, Secretary-General of the European Committee of the Regions» Brando Benifei, Member of the European Parliament» Krista Simberg, Executive Director, European Youth Parliament Eleonora Wäktare Jiř í Buriánek Brando Benifei Krista Simberg Speaking at the opening of the conference, the CoR s Secretary-General Jiř í Buriánek provided the welcome address. He said that Europe demanded the qualities of youth and that today is a day to brainstorm and seek meaningful ways to reintegrate the youth into the European reality. Be bold in your ideas and come forward with ambitious proposals. He was followed by MEP Brando Benifei and Executive Director of the European Youth Parliament Krista Simberg who discussed the ideas of the conference and debated the current future of European youth. Ms Simberg stated that the conference was a good opportunity to highlight youth as a group, given that young people are equal citizens next to any other but they are a group that is often not taken into consideration. Mr Benifei, the youngest elected S&D MEP, urged the need for the EU institutions to disseminate the existence of youth programs to young people in more isolated EU regions, citing the Youth Guarantee as a pivotal example of where cooperation is warranted. 4

5 REPORT PANEL SESSION YOUTH (UN)EMPLOYMENT» Mike Campbell, Professor, Researcher in the URBACT Job Generation Project, UK» Eva Paunova, Member of the European Parliament» Gianfranco Simoncini, Regional Minister for Economic Activities and Employment, Tuscany, Italy» Juha-Pekka Nurvala,First Vice- President of the Youth of the European Peoples Party» Nicholas Wenzel, Co-founder of InternsGoPro social enterprise, Germany Mike Campbell Eva Paunova Gianfranco Simoncini Juha-Pekka Nurvala Nicholas Wenzel There are 6 million young people currently unemployed in the EU. This figure is the double of that of adult unemployment. As moderator Mike Campbell highlighted, the cost of youth unemployment today for the European economy is of 130 billion pounds every year. With this figure in mind, Mr Campbell gave the floor to the speakers. Nicholas Wenzel, co-founder of InternsGoPro, stressed the fact that internships are nowadays seen as a requirement to get a job, but the majority of the internships have not the necessary quality - they have no learning content to improve the professional skills and have little or no pay. He discussed how InternsGoPro wanted to help young people to find quality internships, in order to find better job opportunities and get them out of this vicious circle of traineeships. Gianfranco Simoncini of the Regional Government of Tuscany focused on the youth employment development in Italy, where his region is at the forefront of tackling this issue, albeit being severely hit by youth unemployment as a direct result of the crisis: Tuscany is investing 64 million Euros on the youth guaranty. We have to invest in jobs and protect the young people that have been hit the most after the crisis. Juha-Pekka Nurvala recalled that we should focus on real problems. Europe is a horrible place for entrepreneurs at the moment. He also stressed the issue that we still do not have a real digital Single Market in Europe which means that by 2020, there will be one million job vacancies in IT sectors, for which we don t have a qualified personal. While stating that the Youth guarantee is an important policy, he made it clear that it is not an employment guarantee though. He reiterated the importance of putting pressure on the governments at all levels, in order to for them to create efficient youth policies and boost growth: we want the real reforms, which will give us the real jobs. Bulgarian Member of the European Parliament and youngest MEP of the European People s Party, Eva Paunova, stressed that we need more young and fresh ideas in the European Parliament and focused her speech on the importance of education in the fight of unemployment. Using a quote by Albert Einstein, which states that education is what remains when one has forgotten what we have learned in school, she referred to the fact that education needs to follow the expectations of today and especially those of the markets. She gave the example of Norway, which introduced entrepreneurship in primary schools, for her, the only way to stop the endless internship cycle is by giving young people a sense of entrepreneurship as early as possible. These introductory statements led to an interesting and important debate that focused mainly on the vicious internship cycle and young entrepreneurship. Miss Careerless, an online magazine (@MissCareerless), said that we need to abolish unpaid internships, as many young people in the EU cannot break from the internship cycle and into paid work. 5

6 REPORT PANEL SESSION IS THE EUROPEAN CITIZENSHIP FAILING THE YOUTH?» Anthony Zacharzewski, Founder and Director, Democratic Society, UK» Thomas Maes, Secretary-General, Young European Socialists» Igor Caldeira, Secretary-General European Liberal Youth» Michael Dixon, Former Convener of SNP Students, Scotland, UK» Claire Dhéret, Senior Policy Analyst, European Policy Centre Anthony Zacharzewski Thomas Maes Igor Caldeira Michael Dixon Claire Dhéret By way of introducing the themes for the panel and discussion, each speaker set out their hopes and aspirations for young people in Europe. Thomas Maes of the Young European Socialists expressed his concerns that European citizenship and its associated rights were becoming more exclusive but maintained that the system as a whole was not failing all young people. Stating that political disfranchisement of young people was as old as democracy, Igor Caldeira set out his vision for engaging young people in politics. He remarked that a generational shift in power would have to take place in order for political parties to integrate youth, for example through innovative, modern systems such as e-voting used in Estonia as well as the lowering of the voting age to 16 in Member States. His final piece of advice was to build a democratic European Union not a bureaucratic one. Sharing Scotland s 2014 referendum experience and the Young Scots for Independence campaign, Michael Dixon stressed that politicians need to connect with young citizens to get them engaged. As an example, he discussed how the SNP s recent membership spike illustrated a grassroots movement that was evolving in Scotland. Fundamentally, Mr Dixon believed that there was a need to make Europe newsworthy in order to get information across to its citizens and engage them, but that there was no simple way of doing so. Claire Dhéret shared some research insights of the European Policy Centre and identified three main areas for development: better communication; increased representation of young people; and a greater politisation of the European debate. Questions from the floor covered a wide range of issues including mobility within the context of European citizenship, awareness and learning about the EU from a young age, the distrust in political parties and breaking down stereotypes of young people, creating a pan-european social security system and, finally, lowering the voting age for European elections to 16. REPORT PANEL SESSION NEXT: SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH - CAN WE DO IT?» Andrea Forti, Administrator, Directorate for Horizontal Policies and Networks, CoR» Jasna Gabrič, Mayor of Trbovlje, Slovenia, and member of the CoR» Daiva Matoniené, Member of Suayliai City Municipal Council, Lithuania, and member of the CoR» Eva-Maria Revilla Penaranda, Policy officer, European Commission, DG Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs» Michael Bloss, Spokesperson, Federation of Young European Greens 6

7 Andrea Forti Jasna Gabric Daiva Matoniené Eva-Maria Revilla Penaranda Michael Bloss The debate on sustainable development and growth started with questioning the definition of the overly discussed term sustainability in relation to the need to find the balance between economy and environment. By giving examples from her experience, where various actions related to renewable energy sources and environmental education programmes were implemented, Jasna Gabrič emphasized that shifting to a greener society is a long and complicated process. Despite this, she believed that local and regional authorities could play a very important role in involving young people into environmentally related activities and that they could work more closely together in shaping a more responsible society. Daiva Matoniené added to this train of thought by focusing on the need for a holistic approach and the need for more environmentally related funding for local authorities. Following this, the panel discussed the role of the European Commission in the process and how various institutions were working together for a greener economy. Eva-Maria Revilla Penaranda spoke about shifting the message for businesses by focusing more on innovations, resource efficiency and the economic aspect of sustainability. This could be beneficial both for industries and for the environment. Furthermore, Ms Revilla emphasized the need for a strong civil society and the vital role of young people as part of it, which should be pushing both local authorities and businesses to change their means of production into more sustainable ones. Michael Bloss added to this topic by talking about the unequal distribution of wealth and the fact that we are already living beyond the means of our planet. In his opinion, this made the role of civil society pushing for greener policies even more important. He also stressed the regional and local element, saying, We do not need only money to develop green policies. We also need organisation at the community and local level. Finally, Mr Bloss emphasized that young people were becoming increasingly aware of the issue and were demanding change, prompting stronger greener policies and a need to find solutions which would link the economy with the environment. REPORT PARTICIPATORY SESSION Facilitator:» Anita Paalvast, with the support of co-facilitators Ian Andersen, Christian Weinberger and Katarzyna Balucka-Debska The second part of the conference was held in a participatory way which aimed to include the participants in an open dialogue about their concerns and brainstorm for possible solutions and recommendations towards the European institutions regarding their future. Anita Paalvast Using an open space method, the facilitator Anita Paalvast invited the audience to actively participate by hosting a session related to their interest or join one and contribute with their knowledge. For the next couple of hours, the participants were vividly debating on various topics related to involving young people in politics, innovative work opportunities, minimum wages for internships, green economy packages, Europe Direct centres etc. At the end of the second round of the open space, the hosts of each session presented their ideas, conclusions and their proposal for the European institution. Following the presentations, fifteen proposals were prepared for voting during the Closing Session.

8 REPORT CLOSING SESSION» Eleonora Wäktare» David Garrahy, Policy and Advocacy Coordinator, European Youth Forum» Christophe Rouillon, Mayor of Coulaines, France, and member of the CoR» Laurent Thieule, Director of Communication, Press and Events, CoR Eleonora Wäktare David Garrahy Christophe Rouillon Laurent Thieule The Closing Session began with the participants voting upon the proposals suggested during the afternoon s participatory session. The ten proposals with the most votes were thus selected to represent the views of young people. Following the voting session, David Garrahy mentioned the huge crisis for young people, noting that 10 years ago internships were rare but that the current state of the labour market did not give young people easy access to jobs. This meant that young people had to gather and speak up together, otherwise they were just lonely voices and decisionmakers did not regard them as a block. Following this, Laurent Thieule urged Brussels to go beyond the bubble in order to increase civic awareness at European level and it is important to try to solve problems at local level first, by including young people and increasing their participation in political activities. Finally, Christophe Rouillon appealed to young people and encouraged them to build a new Europe as we want it and would like it to be. This meant preventing Eurosceptics from accessing power as their sole objective is to destroy the current system. If Europe fails, it will be swept away by the waves of nationalism that will cause conflicts similar to the one currently lived in Ukraine, he warned. He also noted that the CoR was pushing the European Parliament and the European Commission to focus on measures on youth unemployment and on the issue of young people s education and training. Mr Rouillon concluded that Europe should be closer to its citizens, and in particular to through the regions and local communities. He stressed that it was up to all of us to defend the idea of Europe at local level. EUROPEAN UNION Committee of the Regions Conference pictures, video report and background information: Edited by the Directorate of Communication, Press and Events of the CoR Rue Belliard/Belliardstraat 101 _ 1040 Bruxelles/Brussels _ Belgique/België Tel _ Fax _ Follow