The 4th Summit of Heads of State and Government will define the future orientations of the Council of Europe.  As such, the Secretary General has proposed to the Committee of Ministers to launch a new four-year programme from 2024 to build on those outcomes.

Consequently, an important item on the agenda of the Joint Council on Youth (CMJ), the co-managed decision-making body of the youth sector was to agree on the priorities for the new programming period. The CMJ agreed to retain the current five strategic priorities for this new four-year period, thereby continuing to contribute to the implementation of the Youth sector strategy 2030 and the Secretary General's Strategic Framework for the Council of Europe.

Those priorities are: revitalising pluralistic democracy; young people’s access to rights; living together in peaceful and inclusive societies; youth work; and developing and improving youth policy based on Council of Europe standards. 

The CMJ also discussed the youth sector's support to young people, youth workers and youth civil society organisations in Ukraine.  The members welcomed the youth chapter in the Council of Europe Action Plan on Ukraine: Recovery, Resilience and Reconstruction, which aims to strengthen participatory youth policies and reinforce youth work in both the war and post-war contexts. 

The EYF-funded project “Greece 2022: Atlas of Social Oppression”, organised by Youth Empowerment Centre, aims at raising awareness among young people in Thessaloniki, Greece, on the phenomena of social oppression. 20 young people were trained on key terms related with social oppression and equipped with educational tools to raise this topic with other young people.

During the training, the participants discussed about different forms of social oppression and what can be done to fight them. Through interactive learning, they discussed about discrimination also in the context of migration and social inclusion of Roma people in Greece. The EYF secretariat visited the project on 7-8 March.

Some participants’ voices:  

Chris: “This project gives me the opportunity to be more engaged socially. I have experienced social exclusion when I was younger. I want to learn more about this topic, to exchange with other young people, to construct my own opinion. This kind of projects is important because it allows us to go deeper in topics that we may vaguely know, but we have not thought about them in an organised way.”

Helia:” I am glad to be part of this project that allows me to think of better ways of taking action, for a better world. This kind of projects is important because in schools we do not learn all that is relevant for our daily life. So with this kind of activities we get a better insights of this kind of problems and learn about social issues and human values.”

From 20 to 24 March, twenty-nine secondary school student activists and representatives belonging to the Organising Bureau of European School Student Unions (OBESSU network) gathered for the study session “I have a say!” - Ensuring democratic participation of youth by voting@16.

This was an opportunity to discuss good practices from the Council of Europe member states on enabling the right to vote@16, and its fundamental role in revitalising democratic participation in our societies. It was also a space to exchange and reflect on useful tools for young people, school student unions and youth groups to campaign for the right to vote at 16 and demand an inclusive, fair democratic culture in different levels and contexts.

Through a series of reflection moments across the 5 days, the most effective and insightful advocacy tools were identified, collected, and drafted into a Vote@16 Handbook, which will be made available by the end of summer 2023.

In March 2023, the European Youth Foundation (EYF) organised several meetings for international youth organisations and networks to take stock of the co-operation with them and to inform them on how to apply for international activities and annual work plans in 2023. As a result of these sessions, the EYF is preparing proposals for adjustments of its grants to reflect the realities and evolving needs of young people and youth organisations across Europe.

On 2 and 3 March 2023, in Brussels, the EYF held an information and networking seminar for over 40 representatives of international youth organisations and networks based in Brussels and elsewhere on in Europe. During the seminar, participants learnt more about the EYF upcoming deadlines and the specificities of each grant type, shared their challenges in implementing EYF-supported projects and made proposals in view of the EYF review of its grants. A workshop was also held on inclusion and diversity in youth projects and several good practices were shared.

Furthermore , on 6 March, over 40 youth organisations, both international and national, attended an online information and dialogue session with the EYF.

The exhibition "Youth work in war time" is displayed at the European Youth Centre in Strasbourg. The exhibition is based on photos provided by the participants of the study visit and seminar for youth workers and representatives of youth centres providing youth work during war time in Ukraine

• Developing policies and programmes in support of Roma youth participation, including the preparation of a Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers to member states, based on a double mainstreaming between Roma and Youth policy areas;
• Capacity-building of and with Roma youth-led organisations and networks, including education and training activities at the European Youth Centres.