Friday, 5^th November 2010

Council of Europe: youth's best friend with a challenge

Recently I've engaged in an interesting debate with other candidates on the YFJ intranet blog on the importance of the different institutional partners the European Youth Forum (YFJ) is working with, especially the Council of Europe (CoE), the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN).

Notwithstanding the importance of all three institutions I've argued that due to the obvious facts of being a European platform, having the vast majority of our member organisations working predominantly in the framework of the CoE and the EU, these two institutions merit a special relationship with YFJ. Bottom line is that thanks to the structured dialogue we have in the EU and the co-management system we have in the CoE the YFJ is THE voice of young people in these two contexts, while in the UN framework were are one of the voices.

Now I want to also make a distinction between the EU and the CoE and remind us of the importance and relevance of the Council of Europe, especially for youth work in Europe.

Let's start with the obvious: the EU covers only 27 states in Europe compared to 47 covered by the CoE; but still many people see the EU and Europe as one and the same thing. I constantly fight against this due to my background: before Slovenia joined the EU in 2004 I was already part of Europe in everything except having the rights linked to so-called European citizenship that is de iure a thing of the EU. The YFJ is a truly European platform including among its members national youth councils ranging from Iceland to Azerbaijan and covering almost everything in between. Nobody disputes the Europeaness of our colleagues whether they are part of the EU or not and this in itself is an important value we share – the dream of a united Europe to which the CoE is the next best thing (so far). The work of the YFJ should continue to reflect this fact.

Secondly, the CoE institutional framework recognises the YFJ as the representative platform of young people in Europe to the maximum possible extent, namely through the so-called co-management. What is this exactly? The co-management system involves representatives from youth non-governmental organisations (NGOs) sitting down in committees with government officials who together then work out the priorities for the youth sector and make recommendations for future budgets and programmes. These proposals are then adopted by the Committee of Ministers, the Council of Europe's decision-making body. According to the ladder of participation it is the highest possible level of involvement in decision-making. How does it work in practice? We have this special body called Advisory Council on Youth (AC) which is made up of 30 representatives from youth NGOs and networks who provide opinions and input on all youth sector activities. It also ensures that young people are involved in other activities of the Council of Europe. This shows that the CoE is the only institution that practices what it preaches when it comes to youth participation.

However, despite the CoE being an institution that already shares many of the YFJ values (respect for human rights, democracy, rule of law, etc), it is currently going through a profound reform process, and there is a legitimate fear that this reform process will interfere partly with the activities of the youth sector, including the European Youth Foundation, and partly with the co-management system. The European youth centres in Strasbourg and Budapest and the European Youth Foundation are unique instruments that we want to keep in the future, so is the training and multiplier-approach, especially in relation to combating racism, islamophobia, romaphobia etc in Europe, but if we want to keep them we need to be ready to defend them. It is now more than ever time that YFJ is not only the beneficiary of the co-management system in terms of raising the voice of young people but to use this voice and proactively engage in and contribute to the reform process. How? By showing the CoE that the youth civil society believes in it and is supporting it. But also by showing that the CoE needs youth if it is to survive and develop its distinctive value in the European context. At the same time the YFJ must fight to maintain the co-management system and advocate for keeping the funds available for the youth work development in Europe to which CoE has vastly contributed already.

And how do I propose the YFJ does this? First step is better awareness among all member organisations of the added value the CoE represents for our work. Acknowledging the fact that the above-mentioned AC – 2/3 of which are composed by members elected by YFJ – is an important tool for YFJ advocacy work as the main representative of youth organisations in the CoE context. Second step would be to better inform and prepare the 20 AC members elected by YFJ in terms of explaining them what YFJ wants and advocates for and how they as individuals can help contribute to the work of the AC. Moreover, by improving the exchange of information to make sure that all MOs know what is going on in the CoE context and by improving the ways of reporting back to the YFJ membership these 20 young people can be the perfect link between the CoE and YFJ MOs.

Despite the EU being a supranational institution and therefore more powerful in many respects we should not neglect the importance of the CoE nor see it only as the framework in which we want to fight for youth rights via a convention but foremost as the place where youth is co-managing youth affairs and where we can work on a truly European youth work development. We need a strong CoE but we need to recognise the fact that we are part of its decision-making and thus need to be strong ourselves and fight for maintaining and further improving the system.