The Third Eastern Partnership Youth Forum takes place in Warsaw

The Eastern Partnership (EaP) Youth Forum is taking place in Warsaw on 22-23 June, bringing together over 300 youth leaders, youth workers and youth policy makers from EU Member States and the EU's six Eastern neighbours: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. The Forum, organised by the European Commission and the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the run up to the Eastern Partnership Summit taking place in Brussels in November 2017, will provide a unique opportunity to discuss policies and programmes dedicated to young people.

Ahead of his participation in the Forum, Johannes Hahn, Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, said: "Active, critical and responsible citizenship among young people is key in addressing the challenges we face in the European Union and our Eastern Neighbourhood. I look forward to lively discussions with young people at the Eastern Partnership Youth Forum in Warsaw! The resulting recommendations will be instrumental in shaping our youth policies: I expect youth to figure prominently among the issues to be discussed at November's Eastern Partnership Summit".

During the two-day event young people from both the EU and the EU's six Eastern neighbours will work intensively in workshops to develop recommendations to the EaP policy makers in sight of the upcoming EaP Summit. The recommendations will be developed in three main strands: 1) young people as active, critical and responsible citizens; 2) young people and entrepreneurship – taking the future into own hands and 3) young people and education today: formal, non-formal and informal. The Youth Forum will also provide an opportunity to learn about volunteering, funding, social entrepreneurship and build the skills in mobile applications and strategic communications.

Background:

The Eastern Partnership is a joint policy initiative launched in 2009 to deepen relations between the European Union and the six Eastern neighbours: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. The Eastern Partnership is based on shared values of fundamental freedoms, democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law, as well as shared commitment to market economy and sustainable development.

The Eastern Partnership Youth Forum will be the third conference dedicated to issues which matter young people, organised in the margins of the Eastern Partnership Summit. The previous Eastern Partnership youth fora took place in Lithuania (2013) and Latvia (2015) focusing on social inclusion and employment/employability respectively.

One of the main EU-funded programmes in support to youth in the region is the new EU4Youth Initiative, which makes available €20 million overall to foster the active participation of young people in society and their employability, by developing those skills that can support them in becoming leaders and entrepreneurs. In addition, EU4Youth will provide €8 million worth of grants to support young people to participate in political, social and economic life.

The hashtags #EaPyouth & #strongertogether will be used for communications about the Youth Forum on the social media