How do we move away from ‘youth-washing’, where youth participation primarily produces a photo-op, rather than dialogue in which young people contribute effectively? The youngest EESC member, Laure Niclot, set out the prerequisites for the meaningful engagement of all young people, and not just the privileged few.

By Laure Niclot

Opportunities for youth participation at EU level are multiplying: youth dialogues with Commissioners; an EU youth dialogue soon entering its 12th cycle, which makes it the widest youth participation mechanism on the planet; participatory initiatives organised by different institutions (such as the EESC’s Your Europe Your Say); and even a direct advisory board to Ursula von der Leyen made up of young people.

Youth participation, in its institutional form, is there for youth organisations ready to make their voices heard. But once we have put in the work, time, and energy to contribute, what happens next? How are young people actually taken into account?

Too many youth participation experiences simply result in nice photos of young people next to politicians, along with empty promises. While any exercise in participation is valuable ─ because it allows young people who never thought they would set foot in an institution to experience what policy-making is and realise that they have every right to contribute ─ we have to underline how dangerous it might be to let ourselves slide towards ‘youth-washing’. If we let the initial experience of policy participation be more of a communication exercise than one of dialogue, how are we going to continue to ask young people to contribute to the institutional game, or simply to vote?

And let’s be honest: youth organisations, like all NGOs, are underfunded and understaffed. We do it because we believe in the value of defending youth rights, of defending our right to live in a world that’s worth hoping for, and of defending our liberties and freedoms in the face of authoritarianism. As those who will enjoy (or suffer) the consequences of the decisions we make today, I’d say we have earned our seat at the table.

So how do we step away from youth-washing and create the conditions for meaningful engagement?

I would say three ingredients are key here, including structural follow-up (which requires the necessary means) and actual representation.

Structural follow-up means organising forms of youth participation not as one-off events but as tools that are there to support meaningful, long-lasting contributions. In that regard, the EESC’s youth test is one of the best examples in the EU. And of course, to support that, we need to ensure that young people are supported, both technically and financially.

Because youth participation that only allows the representation of socio-economically privileged young people is definitely not satisfactory: there is no such thing as ‘youth’, but rather ‘individual young people’. Young people come from rural and urban areas; they are pupils, students, young workers, or somewhere in between; they come from different socio-economic backgrounds and have different migration- and gender-related experiences; their voices echo the diversity of our societies. We need to make room for all young people, and that means not just having one token young person in the room.

Youth participation is one of the ways we can open the door for the next generation of decision-makers. Let’s be careful to keep these doors actually open for all, and not feed the idea that contributing is meaningless unless you’re already in a position of power.