EC White Paper - A new impetus for European youth

Description

The main challenges the White Paper 'A new impetus for European youth' aimed to address were:

• Demographic trends;
• Changing youth;
• Involving young people in public life;
• European integration;
• Globalisaton.

Most of the suggestions made in the White Paper address the Member States and the regions of Europe, as they are the ones putting most youth-related measures into practice. However, the White Paper also stresses the fact that it is important to give a European dimension to youth-related activities as well. It therefore suggests a new framework for European cooperation comprising of two main aspects:

• Applying the open method of coordination in the specific field of youth;
• Taking better account of the 'youth' dimension in other policy initiatives.

In practice these two main aspects implied the following fields:

Open method of coordination:

1. Participation;
2. Information;
3. Voluntary service among young people;
4. Promoting a greater understanding of youth.

Taking more account of youth in other policies:

1. Education, lifelong learning and mobility;
2. Employment;
3. Social integration;
4. Young people against racism and xenophobia;
5. Autonomy for young people.

The White Paper was the result of an extensive consultation process which took place from May 2000 until March 2001.

The YOUTH Programme which was launched in 2000 and lasted until 2006 was seen as a resource for the new forms of cooperation advocated in the White Paper. The successor of the YOUTH Programme is the Youth in Action Programme, launched in2006.

Legislation

The White Paper was published by the European Commission on 21 November 2001.

Publication date

21/11/2001

Article info

Organisation: European Commission

Keywords

Governance