The European Commission meets youth civil society and stakeholders
Posledná aktualizácia piatok, 11/07/2025
On 8 July 2025, the Youth unit in the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture (DG EAC) organised a second meeting of the EU Youth Stakeholders Group, a network launched a few months earlier in March, as legacy of the 2022 European Year of Youth.
The objectives of this EU Youth Stakeholders Group meeting were to inform youth stakeholders on the progress on new actions like the recently launched President’s Youth Advisory Board, to hear their views on upcoming initiatives going through the Commission youth check and to offer a space for exchange of good practices and learning to the benefit of the European youth sector.
Moderated by Biliana Sirakova (EU Youth Coordinator in DG EAC), the meeting brought together 74 members of the EU Youth Stakeholders Group (member states’ representatives, national youth councils, European youth organisations, stakeholders and the EU institutions).
Highlights
Ioannis Malekos (Head of Unit for Youth and Volunteer Solidarity) opened the meeting noting that important developments have taken place since the launch meeting in Brussels.
Representatives of the Youth and Volunteer Solidarity Unit in DG EAC - Karen Vandeweghe (Deputy Head of Unit), Kari Gardelin (Policy Officer) and Biliana Sirakova (EU Youth Coordinator) gave updates on key youth policy initiatives, including the EU Youth Dialogue, the Commission youth check, follow-up of Youth Policy Dialogues with Commissioners, and the President’s Youth Advisory Board.
In a roundtable participants shared achievements of their organisations and upcoming projects.
Katrine Winther, from the Danish Ministry of Children and Education, gave an update on the upcoming EU Youth Conference taking place in Copenhagen from September 21 to September 23. Focus will be on the next generation of Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps programmes. The outcome of the conference will be a policy paper including recommendations from the workings groups.
In second half of the meeting, stakeholders were consulted on two initiatives going through the youth check process.
Istvan Vanyolos and Silvana Roebstorf from DG Employment gave a presentation on the new Action Plan on the European Pillar of Social Rights. The session continued with breakout discussions where participants identified key social and economic concerns impacting the daily lives of young people. In plenary the groups reported on top priorities to improve the situation for youth within the EU in the future.
Alisa Vekeman, from DG Justice, presented the upcoming EU Civil Society Strategy, highlighting its main pillars: engagement (including the creation of a Civil Society Platform), protection, and support for civil society organisations, especially those affected by shrinking civic space. The participants were again divided into breakout rooms to discuss youth-specific perspectives, including the kind of assistance most needed by youth civil society; input was collected via a shared document.
Biliana Sirakova concluded the meeting, encouraging the members of the EU Youth Stakeholders Group to continue engaging on the Teams platform and to contribute to the public consultations and dedicated meetings linked to initiatives going through the youth check. It is expected that another two meetings of this network take place online by the end of the year.
The presentations and meeting report are available on the EU Youth Stakeholders Group page.