Public conference

• Opening session – Europe’s Youth in precarious times: taking action against the multiple elephants in the room
• Panel session – Decent and affordable housing for all: from Brussels to the Capitals
• Panel session – Youth participation in European politics
• Closing session – Inputs from thematic workshops of the previous day

The Congress of Young Europeans’ public conference took place on October 21st, at Olympion theatre (Pavlos Zannas room), with journalist Alexia Kalaitzi as moderator. The day started with the opening statements of the co-organisers of the Congress, namely Jan Philipp Albrecht, Co-Chair of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, Michalis Goudis, Director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation Office Thessaloniki, Emil Schenkyr, Executive Committee Member of the Young European Greens and Alessio Giussani, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Green European Journal.

The opening session entitled ‘Europe's youth in precarious times: taking action against the multiple elephants in the room’ focused on mapping the complex and interconnected challenges to independent living for young people, as well as on possible ways in which these could be overcome. To begin, Jan Philipp Albrecht, Chair of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, noted that challenges such as the climate crisis, digital transformation and the future of work are accelerating structural changes at a European level, but most political parties are slow to understand them. At the same time, he pointed out with a touch of optimism that the number of young members of the European Parliament has been increasing in recent years, which may help the parties to understand these challenges more quickly. Furthermore, in his second speech, he identified that the allocation of resources does not only depend on budgetary constraints, but that this is a matter of priorities related both to the economic model of our societies and to the need to support infrastructures that involve local communities in the implementation of projects. Then Robbie Stakelum, Head of Policy and Advocacy at the Social Platform, pointed out that the rate of poverty reduction is not moving fast enough to meet the ambitious EU targets, while rates of energy poverty, economic stress and material deprivation are increasing. He also acknowledged that there are relevant policies at European level, but that many of them are often not implemented in the right way, as is the case with basic income, which in many countries is below the poverty line or excludes youth, or their impact is not properly measured. Finally, he stressed that a just transition is not just if it does not include social issues and youth at European and national level – in a meaningful way and not as tokenism. Taking the floor, Rareș Voicu, Board Member of the European Youth Forum, added that one in four young Europeans are at risk of poverty and 49% of them face problems in accessing mental health services. Furthermore, since the European debt crisis, it is observed that 45% of youth do not trust governments, are disillusioned with existing policies and are driven to radicalisation or non-participation in political processes. Therefore, he suggested that for youth there should be minimum proper conditions for access to decisions and a cross-cutting approach combining rights with minimum income. Finally, Anna Iafisco, Policy Officer at Eurocities, said that Gen Z and Millennials are facing a multiple crisis, adding housing and mental health to what was already said. Focusing on housing, she noted the lack of an adequate regulatory framework for short-term rental platforms and the shortage of social/affordable housing. She also said that due to limited municipal budgets local authorities cannot contribute adequately to mitigating these problems, while the quality of housing in urban centres is increasingly declining for a large proportion of youth. All these are leading to a new wave of brain drain, which in turn reduces the economic productivity indices of cities. Based on the above, she suggested increasing resources for Green Transition and working with intermediaries and experts (e.g. social workers) to involve vulnerable groups in participatory processes, as in the example of participatory budgeting in Bologna, Italy.

During the panel session on ‘Decent and affordable housing for all: from Brussels to the Capitals’, Diana Yordanova, Housing Europe Communications Director, underlined an ongoing trend of public ownership turning into private ownership, coupled with the observation that the housing policy field is more of a patchwork. In addition to that, the touristification of cities and the levels of homelessness that Covid-19 pandemic highlighted have not yet been tackled. Indeed, international investment in our cities is under investigation according to Sotiris Sideris, journalist and part of the award-winning investigative team Cities for Rent: Investigating Corporate Landlords Across Europe. Speaking of good policies, he underlined the importance of good data that are missing for example in the city of Athens, while highlighting the vicious cycle of housing starting from a lack of initial funds, passing from debt agencies and arriving at housing risk due to unmet debt obligations. Hanna Smit, youth housing counsellor at Stiching!WOON and former resident & self-management team member at Startblok Riekerhaven stressed the issue of affordable housing for refugees and the importance of approaching the housing challenge also as a learning process. Adding to that, Nicolae Ștefănuță, MEP Greens/EFA observed that many youngsters under 30 still live with their parents and that moving towards affordable housing means more social housing and rent controls. In the discussion that followed, the importance of public spaces in providing a safe place for social integration, interaction was brought up. Housing affordability was linked with transparency, accountability, the ownership and distribution of available space. In addition to that, gentrification and the investment in social housing as a “one-off” rather than an effort of a continuous character were considered among the main challenges. Moreover, constructive examples were mentioned such as the case of a law in the Netherlands setting the minimum acceptable behavior of a landlord, or the case of Barcelona initiatives going first bidder on houses to keep them in the community. The option of promoting remote work internationally to relieve pressure from city centers was also mentioned.

The third session was dedicated to ‘Youth participation in European politics’. At the beginning, Evein Obulor, Director of the European Coalition of Cities against Racism (ECCAR), pointed out that the term youth is not a one-way street, nor is youth political participation. In particular, she stressed that not all young people face the same structural barriers and that at the same time there is a lack of meaningful participation in political processes. Furthermore, she assessed that courage for participation is needed to bring about changes within institutions. These changes can happen if there is confidence in young people to bring in the difference but also to understand how institutions work. Olga Daskali, lawyer and candidate for mayor of Messolonghi, presented her journey that led her to get involved in local politics and the way in which she gradually participated in the creation of a new community that tries to meet local needs, starting from the neighbourhoods. Although her gender and her relatively young age prevented people from voting for her combination, the participatory process followed helped both to activate young people of Messolonghi so that they are not afraid of institutions, and to explore a creative space where new local narratives are built. She was followed by Emil Schenkyr, treasurer of the Federation of Young European Greens, who criticised institutional policy for not focusing on the right issues and not representing youth, and suggested community building as a way to overcome these problems. Finally, Tomaž Deželan, Professor of Political Science at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Ljubljana, presented his research on the evolution of the ways in which young people participate in politics. Some of these important facts include the declining participation of young people in institutional politics but their increasing participation in other forms of politics, the role of new technologies and social media, and the general decrease of civic space for youth. Afterwards, people from the audience asked questions about ways to participate in institutions, about the fueling of far-right rhetoric even from the right and the centre, but also about how a young person can remain authentic while running in an electoral process. Among the different responses from the panel, it is worth mentioning that of Evein Obulor, who inter alia urged young people to choose their battles, to aim for specific goals, not to be afraid of ambiguity and not to have a vision of themselves that they have to be perfect.

In the closing session of the conference, four partners of the Heinrich Böll Foundation summarised and presented to the audience the inputs from the thematic workshops of the previous day (see the respective reports from the workshops). Thus, all participants, as well as the speakers and the rest of the audience, were able to get the full picture of how the young people themselves perceive all these questions.