An EU Strategy for Youth

EESC opinion: An EU Strategy for Youth

Key points

The EESC feels that youth strategy should be developed not only FOR youth but also WITH youth who should be included in the policy-making process as well as in its implementation.

Youth work and youth structures should be the main link in raising awareness and managing all the proposed fields of action in the EU youth strategy through a cross-sectoral approach. Those structures should also be used to prevent marginalisation of disadvantaged youth.


Non-formal learning complementing formal education should be further supported.

Creating links between school, work, associations and voluntary activities should further be addressed at EU and national level as well as entrepreneurial activities (not only in economic terms) should be supported through funding mechanisms.

Young people should become actors in society as their participation in all aspects of their lives is a precondition to policy development in the youth field.

Recognising the skills obtained through volunteering activities is essential (including recognition in formal education).

Projects and activities should develop in young people a sense of global solidarity, awareness, responsibility towards the global community.

The EESC regrets that the proposed Strategy does not specify concrete methods of implementation and ways to measure progress at European and Member State level.

The Commission should encourage the Member States to introduce measures increasing chances for employment and enabling young people to become independent.