EU-PULSE

Timing : December 2023 –December 2025 (24 months )

Coordinator : Social Innovation and Cohesion Institute (Fifty-Fifty)

Partners :

- E-Juniors - France

- Institoyto Koinonikis Kainotomias Kai Synoxis (Social Innovation And Cohesion Institute (Fifty-Fifty)) - Grèce

- Fajub - Federacao Das Associacoes Juvenis Do Distrito De Braga - Portugal

- Europejska Fundacja Na Rzecz Wspierania Rozwoju Innowacyjnego (Efid) - Pologne

- Capital Youth Association (Cya) Ev - Liechtenstein

- Civil Connections Community Foundation (Cccf) - Danemark

- Europsky Dialog - Slovaquie

Shorter summary:

The project aims to implement the EU Youth Strategy 2021-2027 by actively engaging young people in decision-making processes, particularly through the European Parliament Elections 2024. It focuses on creating opportunities for youth participation at national and European levels, empowering young people to influence policies addressing issues such as education, employment, and social inclusion. Through research, consultations, and the development of a Youth Participatory Model using tools like podcasts, the project aims to increase youth awareness of the importance of voting, encourage political parties to consider youth concerns, and strengthen youth participation in democratic processes. It seeks to make the European Youth Goals more visible and accountable by involving young people and youth organizations in planning and implementation.

EU PULSE project objctives:

The EU Youth Strategy 2021-2027 emphasizes the importance of youth participation in decision-making processes at all levels, from local to European. The strategy recognizes that young people have a unique perspective and valuable contributions to make, and that their involvement can lead to more effective and relevant policies.

1.To promote youth participation, the EU Youth Strategy aims to:

2.Create opportunities for youth to engage in policy-making processes at all levels, including through consultations, surveys, and other forms of direct engagement.

3.Support youth-led initiatives and projects that aim to address issues affecting young people, such as education, employment, health, and social inclusion.

4.Foster the development of skills and competencies among young people, such as leadership, communication, and critical thinking, that can enhance their participation in decision-making processes.

5.Ensure that young people are represented in decision-making bodies and that their voices are heard in discussions that affect their lives.

6.Promote the use of digital technologies to enhance youth participation and engagement, such as online consultations, crowdsourcing, and social media. Overall, the EU Youth Strategy 2021-2027 seeks to empower young people and enable them to play an active role in shaping their future and that of the EU.

The project idea is a model that actively, using EP Elections 2024 as a key tool for this participation procedure, engages with young people’s capacity to influence decision making spaces under the framework provided via the EU Youth Strategy 2019-2027 and directly connected to the Youth Goal number #9: Space and Participation for All, which aims to “Engage, Connect, Empower” young people. The proposed action plan is a programme that creates opportunities for young people from age sixteen to thirty years who have an interest in change making. It brings young people into the policy-making process at a national and European level. The idea aims to be created is a space to grow and develop capacity to influence, by connecting EU with Youth and also by realising the vision of young people by mobilising the EU level policy instruments as well as inciting stakeholder actions at a national, regional and local level.

With this regard, under the need to Call: ERASMUS-YOUTH-2023-YOUTH-TOG – European Youth Together EU Grants: Application form (ERASMUS BB and LS Type II): V2.0 – 01.06.2022 5 provide young people with opportunities to engage and learn to participate in civic society (providing pathways of engagement for young people in their daily lives but also in democratic life, aiming for a meaningful civic, economic, social, cultural and political participation of young people from all backgrounds, with special focus on those with fewer opportunities), the project, facilitated by the connection with Europe and European spaces of participation, will be a model of youth democratic participation in EU. Fifty-Fifty, has a long time ago started research which was conducted online during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, searching on chances to share the vision and the needs of the young participants and, how it could be continued to reflect on the model as something that will be both flexible and enduring.

Having recognized the important work of the stakeholders who shape this space, we started this research in order to enhance the potential for young people to shape decision making spaces. As part of the evaluation process via Questionnaires, a representative sample of young people and youth educators or youth policy makers were consulted. This evaluation was instigated to better understand how young people experienced chances regarding with local and regional youth councils that are created in Thessaloniki, and their impact on society and policy from their perspective was our motivation for generating this Project idea. The EU Youth Goals are a set of 11 priority areas for youth policy across Europe, aimed at promoting the well-being and active participation of young people in society. The goals were developed through a participatory process involving young people from across Europe and aim to address the most pressing issues facing young people today. The European Union (EU) is in no way self-evident, its equitable authenticity ought to be continually reestablished and made. That's why the EU depends on the bolster of its citizens, even more than the part states. European citizens within the 21st Century are self-confident, well-informed, and basic. They need to contribute to majority rule government past parties and races. A feasible vote based system reacts to the changes in society and picks up on citizens’ changing desires approximately interest. Other ways and advanced shapes of coordinate cooperation offer the opportunity for citizens to be straightforwardly included in political talk and decision-making forms.

The EU in specific can and must do more so that a “Europe of the citizens” gets to be a political matter of course. The current conditions of crisis of political confidence, like the current ones, in combination with the economic and social crisis of since 2009 until today, have called for the creation of new, innovative and effective, useful tools for European young citizens to understand, inform and control the European parliamentary process and the Members of the European Parliament. Europe is going through one of the most difficult but also exciting times in the history of politics. This challenge and gap to be bridged was for our consortium the generator force for structuring a project idea, that will design a whole Youth Participatory Model using a tool, known and used by the youth society, easy to be used, very attractive, as PodCasts are, for a crucial topic of our days: EP Elections 2024. European young citizens, used to ignore what the real actions of each of the political actors are in the process of making decisions. In 2019, the European Elections recorded the lowest level of participation with 57,39 percent of eligible young voters abstaining. Major challenges were seen in certain countries, e.g. Greece's number of abstainers was more than 75%, and the participation of young people between the ages of 18 - 24 was particularly concerning, as only 7% voted. Of the eligible citizens who voted, several political analysts argue that voters did not see the 2019 election as an opportunity to shape EU policies for the next five years, but as a protest vote against national politics. In fact, large part of young voters casted their vote based on national or local issues and preferences. The data above, highlights the necessity for increasing Youth Participation and their involvement in EU Decision Making Process, by inspiring them to be activated by voting participating and by building up to them knowledge about the EU Law-making and Decision Making Procedure, as the EP Elections are the tool and the force for these procedures, through representatives and their factsheets, that could be changed, introducing Youth Goals and Youth Policy Reform Agenda, up to youth needs for 2024. The core EUPULSE idea is based on the following emotional moto: Youth policy development can be promoted through youth participation in European Parliament (EP) elections 2024.