BRUSSELS – Yesterday the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) selected the schools which will be participating in this year’s edition of Your Europe Your Say!, its flagship event for youth. Their names were selected from over 680 applications at a draw in the presence of Goncalo Lobo Xavier, EESC Vice-President for Communication, and of Katiana Vicens Guillén and Indrė Vareikytė, members of the EESC Communication group.
Thirty-three secondary schools, will be involved in this initiative, one from each of the 28 EU Member States and the 5 candidate countries (Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Turkey), which will be taking part for the first time. These schools from the Western Balkans region are: “Srednja ekonomsko-ugostiteljska škola” from Bar, Montenegro; SOU “Niko Nestor” from Struga, Macedonia; High school “Jordan Misja” from Shkoder, Albania and Elementary and High School “Petro Kuzmjak” from Ruski Krstur, Serbia.
In 2017, the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome will be the theme of the Committee’s annual Your Europe, Your Say youth event, offering young people from around Europe the opportunity to share their ideas about the EU of yesterday, today and tomorrow. Each school will send a delegation of three 16- to 17-year-old students and a teacher to Brussels to participate in a youth plenary session on 30-31 March 2017, back to back with the EESC’s own plenary session. In Brussels the students will work together, debate and vote on the political challenges facing the EU at this difficult time, and suggest their own solutions.
The first phase will begin soon with EESC members visiting the selected school in their own country to help students prepare for the youth plenary, introducing them to the EESC’s functioning and activities and explaining its role in the EU’s architecture.
Through this initiative the EESC, the voice of civil society, is acting to ensure that the views, experiences and ideas of the younger generation, are heard in EU policy making.