New report reveals young people’s solutions for challenges to democracy

Última actualización Jueves, 17/07/2025

The EU Youth Conference in Lublin brought more than 300 people together, most of them young. They spent four days together discussing and brainstorming about the challenges our societies face today.

The youth delegates emphasised that there is a need to increase young people’s hope in a democratic and safe future by increasing their trust in democratic institutions at all levels, resilience and contribution to peacebuilding, to prevent demotivation, disengagement and political alienation. They were also concerned that disinformation and misinformation threaten democratic values, erode trust in institutions and create polarisation. This leads to scepticism, disengagement, and mental health issues as well as inability to make informed choices. 

Again, demonstrating that young people are resourceful, creative and engaged, they proposed several solutions to these problems.

Key proposals from the youth delegates include:

• Declaring a European year of resilience and increasing long-term, easily accessible, EU funding for youth resilience projects and crisis preparedness;
• Strengthening youth engagement in decision-making through measures such as youth led European Citizenship initiatives, Youth tests at national and European level and the EU Youth Dialogue. These should incorporate transparent follow-up processes which track the implementation of policy proposals, as well as partnerships with youth organisations on communication and outreach to reach a diverse range of young people and better enable young leaders to bridge the gap between young people and EU policymakers;
• Encouraging young candidates in elections through measures like quotas, political traineeships, lowering the age of eligibility, and giving young people a real chance of getting elected;
• Introducing civic education as a mandatory subject in formal education, with a comprehensive curriculum, delivered and created in co-operation with non-governmental organisations. This should nurture civic responsibility, promote EU values, civil society, critical thinking, democratic participation, and the role of democratic institutions;
• Co-designing digital learning frameworks together with young people (formal, non-formal, informal) in domains such as algorithm understanding, media literacy, cyber-security, fact-checking, digital footprints, information management, critical thinking, ethical media and AI use;
• Implementing transparent verification and accountability processes for social media, as well as media quality labelling to encourage responsible digital behaviour;
• Supporting youth-led businesses and start-ups in the field of social media and AI.

As a result of previous EU youth conferences, a youth check at the EU-level was introduced earlier this year, the full report is available here.