Promoting the Active Citizenship of Young People in Peripheral Regions: Recommendations for EU Key Players

Abstract

In light of the growing political disengagement of youth, this chapter presents four recommendations on how the Commission and the European Parliament can improve EU youth policies to promote the active citizenship of young people in peripheral regions. Firstly, given the central role that information plays for active citizenship, EU actors need to better tailor knowledge transfer to the needs of young people. Secondly, they need to enhance citizenship competences and political efficacy through meaningful local participation projects that are linked to the EU-level. Thirdly, to guarantee the long-lasting effect of these projects, EU actors should make project funding more reliable, for instance by extending funding periods or lowering the hurdles for follow-up projects. Last but not least, the inclusiveness of bottom-up dialogue formats needs to be further improved to make sure that the EU youth policy goals are connected to the diverse living conditions and needs of young people across the Union.

1 Introduction

In the past 20 years, EU youth policy has developed considerably. Its main objectives include promoting youth mobility, improving education and employability and fostering the active EU citizenship of young people across EU member states by providing information and opportunities for participation and exchange.

A challenge for EU youth policy is the regional disparities within the EU. They are reflected in substantial income differences (Widuto 2019), they concern the transport infrastructure, access to health and education and thus central areas determining the living conditions of (young) EU citizens (see Lorenz and Anders in this volume). Unlike youth in capitals and metropolitan areas, young people in rural peripheries face lower connectivity and are lacking leisure facilities and often grow up knowing that they have to leave their home for a high-quality education or reasonably paid jobs. For them, the EU does not necessarily stand for opportunities and economic prosperity, but they might as well associate it with emigration and feelings of social exclusion. Reaching these young people, informing them about their rights and opportunities as EU citizens and empowering them to make their voices heard is an important task of EU youth policy, particularly in times of growing youth disengagement (Kitanova 2019).

This chapter discusses how the European Commission and the EP as key players of the EU youth policy can improve youth work aimed at the promotion of the active citizenship of young people in peripheral regions. To do so, it builds on the findings of group discussions and interviews with the organisers of EU-related youth projects. The next section sketches the evolution of the EU youth policy and summarises its underlying principles. Section 3 then presents four policy recommendations which are summarised and discussed in the concluding section.

2 The EU Youth Policy: Development and Principles

Already the founding treaty of the European Community, signed in 1957, featured the idea of promoting the exchanges of young people (more precisely, young workers). While the community introduced exchange programs in the 1980s, it was not until the end of the century that the European youth policy gained traction. In 1999, the Council stressed the need to encourage young people to become active citizens and invited the Commission and the member states to foster youth participation at both the community and the national levels (Resolution 1999/C 42/01).¹ The following years, the EU key players presented their ideas for an EU youth policy and established programmes to realise them. Complementing the Erasmus program, the EP and the Council introduced the “Youth Community Action Programme” to strengthen transnational exchanges and transnational community-service activities (European Parliament and Council, 2000). The Commission published the White Paper “A New Impetus for European Youth”, suggesting to organise the EU youth policy by means of the Open Method of Coordination and to consider the youth dimension in all EU policy fields (European Commission 2001). Building on this White Paper, the member states decided to apply the Open Method of Coordination in the field of youth from 2002 onwards, and they endorsed the four thematic priorities of participation, information, voluntary activities and a greater understanding of youth (Resolution 2002/C 168/02).

Since then, EU youth policy has developed considerably.² It covers a large scope of activities, and EU actors have developed a variety of programs and strategies, most recently the “European Union Youth Strategy 2019–2027”. This strategy sets out youth policy objectives and instruments until 2027, grouping them around three areas of action coined “engage”, “connect” and “empower” (European Commission 2018, Resolution 2018/C 456/02). It is supposed to contribute to the realisation of the 11 “European Youth Goals” which were developed by means of a “Structured Dialogue”, a dialogue format established in 2010 to include young people in the reflections about the EU youth policy priorities.

Two main principles guide the EU youth policy and affect the strategies EU actors can choose to enhance the active EU citizenship of young people. Firstly, the EU youth policy follows a decentralised approach. Already in 2001, the Commission underlined that member states and regions “bear the brunt of putting the various youth-related measures into practice”, because it “is on the ground, where young people can see the results of their personal commitment, that active citizenship becomes a reality” (see p. 5 in European Commission 2001). Similarly, the Council underlined that youth policy should encourage “the active participation of young people in the development of the local community” (Resolution 1999/C 42/01). The principle of a decentralised youth policy is also anchored in the choice of policy instruments in this field. Member states did not transfer decision-making competences to the EU level but opted for the Open Method of Coordination, a soft governance approach whereby broad common policy objectives were adopted at the EU level, then implemented by the member states and evaluated by the Commission, which aims to promote a horizontal exchange on best practices. As a result, the working of the EU youth policy depends on the national level (see Lorenz in this volume), and the amounts spent as well as the youth work infrastructure in the member states vary.³

Secondly, and connected to the decentralised approach, the EU relies on informal education and cooperates with local youth organisations, associations and NGOs as well as public bodies at the local, regional and national level. Early on, EU actors declared their intention to promote informal education in the field of youth (European Parliament and Council 2000) and stressed that non-governmental youth associations and organisations provide a valuable contribution to the “development of channels for youth participation at local, regional and national level” (Resolution 1999/C 42/01). Also, the EU Youth Strategy emphasises that “EU youth cooperation should better connect with policy makers and practitioners at the regional and local level and encourage grassroots initiatives by youth” (see p. 3 in European Commission 2018). Accordingly, the youth policy relies on a “close cooperation with civil society organisations and young people” (see p. 138 in de Hofmann-van Poll 2022). To implement the EU Youth Strategy with their projects, the organisations can apply for temporary project grants within the framework of the Erasmus+ program.⁴

3 Recommendations

The group discussions conducted for this volume provide valuable insights into how young people in peripheral areas in five EU member states perceive the EU and their rights connected to EU citizenship. The interviews with leaders of EU-funded youth projects additionally illustrate the challenges that projects to foster active citizenship face in these regions.⁵ Based on this, the following pages discuss ways to improve existing measures to promote active EU citizenship among young people in peripheral areas. Four policy recommendations for EU actors are presented, in particular for the Commission which plays a leading role in enhancing active EU citizenship by promoting exchanges between the member states and running the Erasmus+ program and for the European Parliament.

Recommendation 1: Knowledge transfer tailored to the needs of young people

EU actors are well aware that “information is indispensable to developing active citizenship”—as the Commission stated back in 2001 (see p. 13 in European Commission 2001). They provide online portals with information on the rights and freedoms of EU citizens⁶ or videos informing people about the elections to the EP.⁷ To reach out to young people, the Commission has come to rely on social media. There is an Instagram account giving information on youth initiatives,⁸ a target-group-oriented website for the European Year of Youth 2022 with information on youth-related activities in the member states and links to podcasts and videos.⁹ The Commission also provides information on the EU’s youth activities via YouTube.¹⁰ Besides this, EU institutions cooperate with Eurodesk, a European youth information network with more than 2000 regional and local partners and active on all social media platforms.¹¹

In spite of these efforts, EU citizens in general and young people do not consider themselves well informed. In a public consultation on EU citizenship rights conducted in 2020, over 60% of the respondents indicated that “not enough is being done to inform EU citizens about their citizenship rights” (see p. 1 in European Commission 2020). This was also reflected in the group discussions conducted in several schools in the rural periphery in five East Central European countries. Across the five countries, the discussions revealed that students often lack basic knowledge about the EU and the rights and freedoms connected to EU citizenship. This became evident when students reported that they had not yet heard of the elections to the EP (Stangenberger and Formánková in this volume), when they indicated that they were unaware of the exchange opportunities for high school students and apprentices (Mandru and Víg in this volume), when they had questions concerning specific EU policies and rights or when they said that they had never heard of the Conference on the Future of Europe (Stosik and Sekunda, Stangenberger and Formánková, Stangenberger, Mandru and Víg, Ferenczi and Micu, all in this volume). Obviously, measures to inform young people about their rights and opportunities within the EU do not reach them (compare Lorenz in this volume).¹²

Informing young people about the EU, its policies and the rights and opportunities associated with EU citizenship, therefore, remains a crucial task, and knowledge transfer needs to be improved by specifically tailoring it for young people. The group discussions provide valuable hints on how EU actors can contribute to accomplish this task. First, they can support national efforts to increase the importance of EU issues in formal education, something that many young people suggested in the group discussions (see Lorenz in this volume). To this end, the European Commission can foster exchanges among member states about EU education in schools, for instance, by making EU education as one of the focus topics of the European Education Area.¹³ Besides this, it should continue to provide and to promote easily accessible teaching materials on EU-related topics.¹⁴ Last but not least, it should further encourage cooperation between schools and youth organisations providing non-formal learning opportunities, for instance, by creating monetary incentives for youth organisations to cooperate with schools.

To reach the youth, the EU actors additionally need to improve their own social media strategy. Students in several group discussions revealed that they were not aware of the EU’s social media offers. They reported that they would like to see more EU-related content on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok or Spotify and suggested that influencers on these platforms could play a vital role in promoting EP elections (Stangenberger and Formánková, Stangenberger, Mandru and Víg, all in this volume). Apparently, it is not enough if the Commission and the EP simply provide more information on the EU or EU youth policies through their own social media channels. They need to pay closer attention to ensuring that this information actually spreads and reaches a target group. This could be realised by tailoring knowledge transfer to the media young people use, which could mean to work with youth-oriented multipliers on social media.

Recommendation 2: Strengthen political efficacy through meaningful local participation linked to the EU level

Political efficacy is defined as “the feeling that one is able to effectively participate in politics and also that her input is worthwhile” (Shore 2020). As a prerequisite for many political activities, it is crucial for active citizenship. This is recognised by the Commission which stated in its 2001 White Paper that “if young people have one clear message, it is that they want their voice to be heard and want to be regarded as fully-fledged participants in the process” (see p. 5 in European Commission 2001).

The reports on the youth projects in this volume suggest that political efficacy can best be enhanced in local participation projects focusing on political problems that concern young people most directly and involving local decision-makers.¹⁵ Youth projects dealing with local problems and involving local politicians can achieve tangible political changes (for instance, by having an additional night bus). Through such changes, young participants can experience firsthand that their political activities can make a difference and contribute in shaping their environment (Habelt and Despang in this volume).

Hence, the various local participation projects within the framework of the European Youth Strategy create a good environment for attaining citizenship competences and developing the feeling that political participation is worthwhile. At the same time, the reports reveal that meaningful participation projects—that is, inclusive projects resulting in tangible changes—and projects to foster active EU citizenship depend on a number of important factors:

Firstly, according to the organisers of youth projects, actual changes resulting of participatory projects depend to a large degree on the will of local politicians. They therefore suggest that the EU should strive to increase the motivation of local decision-makers to participate in youth dialogue projects. EU actors should appeal to political decision-makers and develop more specific guidelines on youth participation on the local level in order to “put pressure on officials to organise youth dialogues or to establish a closer relationship with young people” (see Gawron and Penzlin, Jolly and Fikejzel, both in this volume). This seems particularly important for EU member states where youth policy is not considered a political priority.

Secondly, participation projects intended to foster not only political efficacy but also active engagement in EU matters need to be linked to the EU. At an individual level, EU actors—especially the MEPs who embody the direct link between the EU and its citizens—therefore need to become active themselves. As representatives of national or regional constituencies, they can get involved in local youth projects, regularly participate and interact with the young project participants and show how they consider the needs of youth in their political work. Such a regular involvement of EU-level actors can motivate young people to actively engage in EU matters. What is important in this context is the long-term commitment of the MEPs. A single event with decision-makers from Brussels will not have the same effect.¹⁶

Thirdly, participation projects can only achieve meaningful results over the course of time. Young people need to be informed about participation opportunities and motivated to participate. Local and EU-level decision-makers need to be convinced to devote their precious time and find a free time slot in their busy schedules, and political ideas developed in youth projects then need to be realised by the local administration or incorporated in EU-level decision-making. These processes need time, which leads to the third recommendation.

Recommendation 3: Ensure more reliable funding for youth projects

Studies on youth work in the European Union show that youth workers often experience “instability or unsustainable employment conditions” (see pp. 123 in European Commission 2014). This can result in staff turnover which compromises the relationships with the young people and the smooth running of the programs (ibid.). These challenges are confirmed by the interviewed organisers of EU youth projects. The organisers of a youth project in Hungary emphasised that successful projects depend on local youth workers with established contacts, which they describe as “the key for the sustainability of a project” (Kónya in this volume). EU funds, however, do not allow for a permanent infrastructure and the staff necessary to provide sustainable youth work. As a result, the project leaders report that they have to constantly seek new sources of funding. This ties up their resources, particularly when the organisations are small (see Habelt and Despang, Gawron and Penzlin, Tadzhetdinova and Gutzer and Jolly and Fikejzl, all in this volume).¹⁷ Scarce resources also impede the working of Eurodesk multipliers. While serving as important disseminators of European youth information at the regional or local level, they do not have the money to hire permanent staff for this task but need to rely on voluntary work as well (Habelt and Despang in this volume).

Sustainability in financial terms therefore seems to be the key to successful youth work aimed at fostering active EU citizenship at the local level. EU actors—particularly the European Commission responsible for running the Erasmus+ program—should therefore provide more reliable funding for EU-related youth projects. At the moment, the EU Youth Dialogue is organised into 18-month work cycles,¹⁸ and youth projects funded by Erasmus+ have a duration of 2 years.¹⁹ Practically, this means that many independent organisations, NGOs and associations conducting EU projects can only plan for very short periods of time and constantly have to seek for the next funding opportunity. What they need, however, to conduct projects in rural peripheries with a long-lasting effect are “permanent local structures which do not depend on temporary project funding” (Jolly and Fikejzl in this volume). In this respect, it could be an easy and good starting point if EU actors extended the work cycles of EU Youth Dialogue projects and the duration of Erasmus+ − funded projects or if they lowered the hurdles for receiving a grant for follow-up projects. Besides this, they should actively encourage member states to further provide public support for youth organisations working on EU issues (see Lorenz in this volume).

Recommendation 4: Keep room for diversity and make all voices heard by improving the inclusiveness of bottom-up dialogue formats

The group discussions with students in rural peripheries in five member states clearly showed that students do associate very different things with the EU and EU rights. While all groups agreed on peace as an important EU achievement and reported that for them the EU stands for the freedom of movement, they differed significantly in their prioritisation of other EU rights and freedoms (compare Stosik and Sekunda, Stangenberger and Formánková, Stangenberger, Mandru and Víg, Ferenczi and Micu, all in this volume). This diversity of perceptions of the rights and freedoms associated with the EU is in line with recent studies on public debates on European integration which have shown that Europe’s public sphere can be described as a “justification jungle” (De Wilde 2021). There is no dominant narrative of European integration and its achievements, but speakers in public discourses use a variety of different and competing frameworks and narratives.

In terms of EU youth policy, this finding once again underscores the importance of the EU’s decentralised approach (and it might as well be interpreted as a result of it). For young people in different contexts with very diverse living conditions, the EU means different things. Benefits associated with EU citizenship that are important to some appear less important to others. A youth policy aimed at strengthening young people’s citizenship competences, therefore, does not need to be based on a single narrative or devoted to a unique goal but connected to the diverse realities and perceptions of young people across the Union. In this sense, the 11 European Youth Objectives seem broad enough to provide starting points for diverse projects that link European objectives with young people’s local engagement in very different contexts. The EU should continue to base its youth policy on such a broad foundation which is substantiated through local projects, and EU actors should make sure that the EU youth policy priorities speak to all young people across the Union.

For that end, the EU’s bottom-up approach to involve young people in the formulation of youth policy priorities through the Structured Dialogue needs to become more inclusive. The European Youth Goals developed by young people during this dialogue identify as one of its main goals to move rural youth forward (Resolution 2018/C 456/02). While this suggests that young people in rural areas across Europe have been successful in generally raising awareness for their needs and influencing the youth agenda at the European level, the exclusiveness of these Youth Dialogues remains to be a problem (Pušnik and Banjac 2022), and this problem also has as spatial dimension. As many project organisers reported, the informational and organisational infrastructure for EU-related youth work is still better in the capitals and cities than in remote areas (Tadzhetdinova and Gutzer, Kónya, both in this volume).

The chances of participating in bottom-up dialogues and influencing the EU youth policy agenda are thus unevenly distributed. When conducting future Structured Dialogues, EU key players therefore need to pay particular attention to ensure that the voices of young people in urban areas are not overrepresented and that those of young people in rural areas carry equal weight. At an individual level, they can enhance the inclusiveness of dialogue formats by actively reaching out to projects and young people in the periphery themselves. At a more structural level, they can create further incentives for decentralising the EU youth work infrastructure, for instance, by reserving a certain proportion of project funds for projects in peripheral regions. To ensure that these measures match national efforts (see Lorenz in this volume), close cooperation between the EU and national actors is needed.

4 Conclusion

Active EU citizenship depends on at least three conditions. Citizens must know their rights, they must know how to use them and they must be convinced that they can make a difference. EU youth policy aims to ensure that these conditions are met by informing young people about their rights and opportunities as EU citizens and by providing them with opportunities for meaningful participation.

The recommendations for EU key actors developed in this chapter are based on exploratory research on the experiences of young people and youth organisations in remote rural areas in five EU member states. They are not intended as general guidelines for EU youth policy but more specifically as suggestions on how to improve the promotion of the active citizenship of young people in peripheral regions within the EU. Overall, the recommendations do not call for a massive revision of EU youth policy. Rather, they represent ideas to refine existing approaches.

The first recommendation provides ideas on how to disseminate information about EU youth policies to reach young people in rural peripheries. The second one underlines that it is at the local level where youth projects can provide young people with the competences and the motivation to become actively involved in (EU) politics. Creating opportunities for meaningful participation through the involvement of local stakeholders and simultaneously linking these projects to the EU level, therefore, needs to remain a key priority of EU youth policy. For that end, EU key players, particularly MEPs, should actively engage in local projects to create direct channels through which young people can experience the EU and express their needs. Of course, such a permanent local engagement is difficult to fit into the MEPs’ busy schedules, but worthwhile nonetheless, given that the young people of today are the voters of tomorrow. As the lasting success of participatory youth projects at the local level depends on a number of factors—longer-term planning by experienced youth workers with local networks—the third recommendation concerns the structural conditions of youth work in the rural periphery, particularly the project funding that needs to be more reliable to allow for longer-term planning. While this makes EU youth work less flexible and limits competition for new project ideas and innovative practices, the individual youth projects are likely to become much more effective and sustainable. The last recommendation is related to the fact that the youth work infrastructure in rural peripheries is still lagging behind, resulting in unequal chances for participation. EU actors, therefore, need to further improve the inclusiveness of bottom-up dialogue formats to make sure that the ideas of young people in these areas can carry equal weight.

EU actors alone cannot guarantee successful EU youth policies. They depend on the support of diverse national, regional and local actors. Hence, the close and continuous cooperation of all these actors in their diverse settings is needed to succeed in promoting active citizenship beyond urban centres.