The largest event dedicated to youth in Europe and elsewhere, the European Union Youth Conference was officially opened on Tuesday, 26 March 2019, in the grand hall of the National Library of Romania.
The proceedings were attended by about 250 representatives of Ministries, European and international youth and labour market institutions, as well as representatives of youth from the Member States of the European Union, the Eastern Partnership countries and Western Balkan countries. The event was also attended by Minister of Labour and Social Justice, Marius Budăi (photo left), and the EU Youth Delegate, Maria Francesca Cristea.
The agenda of the Conference included the topic Youth and the Future of the labour market, and the dialogue between authorities and youth, as recommended in the EU Strategy for Youth. Another point of great interest for Romania in this context is high-quality jobs for everybody.
“I am glad that today, under the aegis of the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, I can welcome you to one of the most important events in Europe dedicated to dialogue with the youth. It must surely be a first for Bucharest to host a conference of such importance, which brings together youth, youth representatives and public authorities representatives from almost all of Europe,” Minister of Youth and Sports Bogdan Matei (photo right) declared in the opening of the Conference.
“Here we are, 3 months after the new European Union Youth Strategy was enacted. There are several new points of interest, but for today’s meeting I shall only mention the introduction of the new EU Youth Dialogue and the integration of the European Youth Goals into that document. During this Conference, we intend to find together the innovative instruments that would engage the youth in a high-quality dialogue with public authorities. Secondly, as you may well know, the Romanian Presidency, inspired by the European Youth Goals, has proposed tackling the topic of the Future of Labour in relation to the youth.
I am sure that the debate of this week’s Conference will propose solutions for the successful management of the future of Labour in a youth context and will demonstrate that an important first step of a good EU Youth Dialogue was made in Bucharest,” concluded Minister Bogdan Matei.
The EU Youth Conference is the main youth event of each Presidency. This offers youth the possibility to inform and influence decision makers about the problems that impact their lives.