05/10/2012 President
Strasbourg, 5.10.2012 – “As a parliamentarian I set great store by youth participation in politics. It is very important that the younger generation has access to political mandates at the national and European levels in order to tackle the problem of young people’s lack of trust in political leaders. But that is not enough: we must also develop formal and informal participatory democracy mechanisms so that all interested youngsters can participate in the decision-making process,” said Jean-Claude Mignon, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), at the opening of the PACE Youth Assembly in Strasbourg.
“After the first Youth Assembly in 1999, when the Council of Europe was celebrating its 50th anniversary, I am proud to have had a hand in launching this initiative, especially since the recommendations which you will be adopting will be examined by the participants at the World Forum for Democracy next week and 40 of you will have an opportunity to attend this major event.”
Representatives of each of the Assembly’s five political groups also took part in the Youth Assembly, each introducing a thematic workshop. For the Socialist Group, Jonas Gunnarsson (Sweden, SOC) said today’s young generation was the most well-educated ever, yet it would be the first ever to have a standard of living worse than the generation before, “a breach of the social contract” in Europe. The reckless behaviour of the older generations was being paid for by today’s young. The answer, he said, was a “new deal for a sustainable future” in Europe, in which today’s generation does not use up the resources of future ones.
For the Group of the Unified European Left, Nikolaj Villumsen (Denmark, UEL) encouraged young people to enter politics: “We should not be afraid to have dreams and we should not be afraid to stand up for them.” He was proud to be in PACE, he told participants, because its essence was international co-operation, based on the shared values of human rights. “This is inspiring to me and I hope it will be inspiring to you as well.”