Based on the mid-term evaluation of the EU Youth Strategy, the Commission wants to better communicate on youth policy by setting up national youth coordinators.
The youth policies of the EU have been particularly in the focus over the last years due to the over proportionally adverse impact of the pandemic restrictions on young people and the spotlight of the European Year of Youth 2022. Yet, the EU’s youth policy framework, the European Youth Strategy, and the main policy platform, the EU Youth Dialogue, predate the pandemic and the Year of Youth. In order to take new developments into account and to assess the effectiveness of EU youth policy, the EU conducted a mid-term evaluation of the EU Youth Strategy 2019-2027. The results of this interim evaluation were now summarised in a report by the European Commission (EC) published on 12 April 2024.
The report shows that overall the strategy is still relevant and had a positive impact since its adoption. However, new challenges for young people need to be included or addressed for EU youth policy to stay fit for purpose, such as, for example, the increasing cost of living and housing as well as rising mental health challenges and feelings of insecurity. Concretely, the report found that the EU Youth Dialogue facilitated greater outreach and engagement with youth, yet there is only limited evidence that the Youth Dialogue has had any direct influence of EU or national policy-making so far. Therefore, the report sees potential for policymakers to make better use of the Youth Dialogue recommendations. Furthermore, the EU Youth Coordinator post, established in 2021, is considered a front-runner in youth mainstreaming. The evaluation shows that their mandate is too extensive and requires more support to be fully effective. Lastly, the evaluation found that the youth strategy is well aligned with the objectives of the Erasmus+ youth actions. Overall, the authors identified a need for better communication on the EU Youth Dialogue and the Youth Strategy as it is not well enough known.
Based on the findings, the EC proposes conclusions to enhance the influence of the EU Youth policies. First, the EC wants to make the EU Youth Dialogue more inclusive by increasing the participation of underrepresented groups of young people. Further, the report proposes the development of a process to make use of the recommendations from the EU Youth Dialogue and create follow-up mechanisms. The EC also wants to make progress with youth mainstreaming across all policy fields, which means involving young people’s perspectives in all relevant policy making processes. For that purpose, the EC has introduced a new youth check in the Commission Communication on the European Year of Youth on 10 January 2024 (see SwissCore article). With this instrument, the EC will run consultations and analyse the potential impact of a relevant policy on young people. The EC will also set up a new Youth Stakeholders’ Platform in autumn 2024 to better structure the exchange with youth organisations and youth researchers. Inspired by the work of the EU Youth Coordinator, the EC encourages the Member States to appoint national or regional youth coordinators. Parallel to this, the EC wants to increase the visibility and further clarify the mandate of the EU Youth Coordinator. Finally, the EC wants to develop indicators to track the progress of the EU Youth Strategy and its goals.
Looking ahead, the Commission wants to start the process of formulating the next EU Youth Strategy post-2027 in co-creation with youth stakeholders starting in 2025. As part of this process, the EC will publish later in 2024 an analytical report on the youth mainstreaming approaches in the EU Member States.