EU NEEDS YOU(TH): This was the EU Youth Conference in Ghent 2024

Last updated on Thursday, 21/03/2024

On 2-5 March 2024, the EU Youth Conference took place in Ghent, marking the implementation phase of the 10th cycle of the EU Youth Dialogue. Find out what happened during the event as well as its main outcomes.

Ghent, the European Youth Capital of this year, hosted the EU Youth Conference from the 2nd until the 5th of March 2024. Over 300 young people and ministerial delegates, coming from all over Europe including Ukraine, met in Ghent to talk about inclusive societies, the topic of the European Youth Goal #3.

Here are five take aways from the EU Youth Conference in Ghent.

1. “What happens in Ghent, doesn’t stay in Ghent”

Throughout the Conference, young people talked to ministerial delegates, representatives from the European Commission such as Commissioner Ivanova and other policy makers, including Belgian Youth Ministers Benjamin Dalle and Isabelle Weykmans. Experts in different policy fields were also present to help the youth delegates formulate recommendations that can be turned into real policies both at the EU and the national level.

Ghent marks the start of the implementation phase of the 10th cycle of the EU Youth Dialogue. In this phase, the role of the national working groups is to make sure that the results from Ghent are communicated towards a broad audience, discussed in policy-making and implemented through policies, on the local, regional, national and European level.

2. Youth will not remain an annex!

Building on the results of the consultations involving over 28 000 young people, the participants of the EU Youth Conference in Ghent worked towards two outcomes: recommendations and implementing measures.

The six recommendations cover the work of all the working groups and will be included in the Council Conclusions on social inclusion by the Belgian Presidency.

These recommendations are made concrete and actionable through 36 implementing measures, developed by each of the working groups. The Belgian Presidency announced that they intend to include these measures in the annex of the Council Conclusions.

While the audience appreciated the efforts to bring the outcomes of Ghent to the Council, one of the youth delegates joked that “youth should not remain an annex”.  several decision-makers got the message and assured the audience that youth would not remain an annex – a promising statement.

3. Inclusion… is everywhere

With a powerful closing performance, Kelvin and Gaffar, respectively facilitator and harvester in Ghent, shared their impressions of the Conference, centred around inclusion.

The Belgian Presidency took a number of measures to make the Conference more inclusive with trust persons, a silent room and a prayer room, facilitation cards, inclusion training for all facilitators, a code of conduct and a green and ethical charter.

During the discussions on the topic of the Conference, inclusive societies, the participants touched upon various aspects of life: education, youth work, social media, housing, information campaigns, employment... They came to the conclusion that making our society more inclusive requires efforts from numerous policy domains and is a cross-cutting issue.  

4. A new outfit for the EU Youth Dialogue

In Ghent, we also celebrated the 10th cycle of the EU Youth Dialogue. For the tenth anniversary, the EUYD received a symbolic birthday present, with wishes for the next ten cycles.

One of the ‘gifts’ was new clothes, referring to the need for clear and consistent visual identity and a communication strategy for the EU Youth Dialogue, to make it more visible. To complete the outfit, the EU Youth Dialogue also received new sneakers, to ‘run that extra mile’ and have even more impact.

The Belgian Presidency already ‘dressed’ the EUYD with videos to explain the EU Youth Dialogue and the role of the participants to the EUYD.

5. Next stop: Budapest

The EU Youth Conference in Ghent is the half-way mark of the 10th cycle of the EU Youth Dialogue. The outcomes of the Conference are now taken along in the implementation phase. In May, the Council of Ministers of Youth will adopt the Council Conclusions on social inclusion, with concrete input from the EU Youth Dialogue.

In September, the Hungarian Presidency organises the next EU Youth Conference in Budapest to discuss the final steps in realising European Youth Goal #3 through the 10th cycle of the EU Youth Dialogue.

You can find the final report of the EU Youth Conference in Ghent soon in the EU Youth Dialogue Library.

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