Youth ask for "more Europe"” “

The European Youth Convention (cf. SirEurope no. 27/2002) met in Brussels from 9 to 12 July. In the course of the four days of discussion, the 210 delegates – representing the fifteen member states of the Union and the thirteen candidate countries, including Turkey – debated future EU integration in relation to the interests, concerns and aspirations of the new European generations. Presenting the conclusions, the president of the Youth Convention – the Italian Giacomo Filibeck, exponent of the Italian and European youth movement of the left – declared that “our debate must not be confined to a single moment of encounter” and invited the Presidium of the Convention to convene a second youth session to discuss the final proposals. Filibeck also expressed the hope that there be “a strong reference to policies for youth” in the future constitutional treaty. The president of the Youth Convention emphasized that “the young have demonstrated that they want to contribute to the debate, but outside there are millions of others, equally if not more active, who also want to contribute to the construction of society”. The final document. With a fourteen-page final document, the young delegates ask for “a European Union that offers a vision of a united and democratic future, a government accessible to citizens, and a vision able to provide the instruments and legitimacy to give a response to citizens’ aspirations”. The young emphasize among other things the need to arrive at a constitutional Treaty for the European Union that also incorporates the Charter of fundamental rights, given compulsory character, and that includes a list of the exclusive functions of the EU and the functions shared between the Union and the member states, with a clear definition of the other functions that still remain the responsibility of states”. The final document proposes that the European Regions, which have constitutional powers, should participate in the meetings of the Council of Ministers for matters that fall within their competence, and hopes that the seat of the European Parliament be limited to the city of Brussels, without any further need to go to Strasbourg as well. The dialogue continues. The young delegates also declare that “international cooperation constitutes the antidote to nationalism, ethnic conflict and dictatorship” and that “the European Union must work for peace, human rights, disarmament and the development of the whole world”. Jean-Luc Dehaene, vice-president of the Convention for the future of Europe and responsible for relations with civil society, thanking the Youth Convention for its contribution, confirmed that the Presidium intends to pursue the dialogue with European youth. That is why president Filibeck and the two vice-presidents of the Youth Convention (the Danish liberal Ellen Trane Norby and the Maltese Popular exponent Roberta Tedesco Triccas) will be invited to follow the work of the future plenary sessions. “The attack of the clones”. Not everything however went smoothly at the Youth Convention: in the course of its final session, 57 delegates presented a minority document entitled “The attack of the clones”, denouncing “the anti-democratic running of the Youth Convention, unrepresentative of European youth” and criticizing the procedures for the choice of candidates and nominations to the executive posts. The main accusation is levelled against the European Youth Forum and the European political parties that are alleged to have managed the meeting without transparency, preventing a real debate and inspiring the drafting of the final document on the basis not of the real aspirations of youth but of the already pre-established interests of the European political families. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, acknowledging that the protest represented over a quarter of the youth delegates, said that “to be frank, I would have wished a wider, truer and freer debate of European youth but the youth organizations took more space than had been planned”. G.A.G.