Second day of the Swedish Conference, marathon of policy ideas.

The second day of the Swedish Conference on Future EU Cooperation in the Youth Field started with key messages of important stakeholders on youth policies:

• The Swedish Minister for Youth Affairs, Ms. Nyamko Sabuni, emphasized the need for a new and improved framework of EU cooperation in the youth field for the period 2009 – 2018. One of the key goals of such a framework is “to ensure that young people have both the possibility and the good means to be involved in the decision-making process in public institutions and civil society organizations.”

• From the part of the European Commission, Mr. Jan Truszczynski, Deputy Director-General for Education and Culture, stressed out that “the issues of volunteering & participation are very important for young people, in order to build up a more inclusive society. They are at the core of youth policy and youth cooperation.”
• From the part of the European Youth Forum, Ms. Xenia Constantinou sent out a key message to the Commission: it should provide adequate cooperation and implementation mechanisms for participation and dialogue, because they are the heart of the EU framework of cooperation.

Once the speeches ended, we formed 10 thematic working groups to brainstorm policy proposals for the meeting of the Youth Ministers in November, 2011. I attended the participation workshop, together with approximately 20 other young people from various NGOs accross Europe and Directorates-General. The policy recommendations tend to be formed of longer sentences, expressing more general ideas. This is different than what t I was used to in the United States, when policy recommendations in resolutions tend to be more specific and shorter. I prefer the American way. But here is a policy recommendation that I proposed: “structures, together with a creative method of participation and an effective outreach effort, should be used as the backbone of a constructive participatory formula that generates success stories. Once these achieved, they contribute to raising awareness about participation among young people and to generating more confidence that they can influence favorable public policies.” The term “participatory formula” came from the Portuguese colleague and I really liked. A “formula” can be adjusted to a different cultural environment and may contain more ingredients, including a method of participation and a legally established organization.

At the end of the day, one representative for each of the 10 working groups made a wrap up of the relevant ideas that came out, as infant policy proposals.