Once again, the European Youth Forum (YFJ) gathered representatives from its 95 Member Organisations for the Council of Members meeting (COMEM), an event held twice a year. This time round, 160 delegates got together in Brussels on 9-10 November. For the first time after being accepted in the Forum, ESN was represented by three delegates: Jelena Brankovic, Davide Capecchi and Giorgio Marinoni.
During this Council of Members the Estonian National Youth Council became YFJ full member and the Romanian National Youth Council gained the status of candidate member. At the same time a policy paper on Achieving Equality Between Women & Men and four resolutions (on visa facilitation, conscientious objection, increased consultations and the European Youth Capital) were adopted.
The YFJ invited two high-level speakers for the plenary session that was centered around youth employment: Stéphane Ouaki, Deputy Head of Cabinet of EU Commissioner V. Špidla and John Monks, General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation.
Professor Maria João Rodrigues, Special Advisor to the Portuguese Prime Minister for the EU Presidency, also addressed the participants; she suggested that the newly established European Council of Ministers for General Affairs should work on youth issues in order to strenghten the cross-sectorial approach of youth policy.
The COMEM represents an important moment in the life-cycle of the European Youth Forum, gathering youth leaders from across Europe, to reflect on the work achieved by the youth movement over the last six months, and work together to shape the future activity of their platform. For ESN this was an important opportunity to develop relationship and exchange ideas with other relevant organisation that deal with young people. By becoming a member of the YFJ family, ESN gained a unique opportunity to be a protagonist in the development of policies concerning mobility and young people’s lives.
