From the beginning to the end of her speech to the European Parliament on Wednesday 15 September, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, made numerous references to young people and called on the institutions to build a Union with a “soul” and a “vision” that speaks to young people.
To this end, the Commission will propose to make 2022 the European Year of the Youth and will work to develop a new mobility programme for young people who are unemployed and not in education or training.
This future programme, called ALMA, “will help these young Europeans to find temporary work experience in another Member State. Because they too deserve an experience like Erasmus. To gain skills, to create bonds and help forge their own European identity”, Mrs von der Leyen detailed, without however giving any precision on the timeframe for the implementation of ALMA.
In addition to these two initiatives, the President stressed that the European Green Deal and the Next Generation EU Recovery Plan should be seen as “protecting the future” of young people.
Praising “the inspiration we can draw from Europe’s young people” and calling for a Europe that reflects “our next generation: reflective, determined and caring”, the President also maintained that young people should “lead the debate in the Conference on the Future of Europe”, which “must be their conference too”.
Last week, however, French MEP Manon Aubry (The Left) noted that of the 25,000 or so Europeans who contributed to the debate via the conference’s digital platform launched in April (see EUROPE 12701/20), only 10% were under 25.
See the State of the Union speech: https://bit.ly/3ltHxvq and the Commission’s letter of intent for 2022: https://bit.ly/3EmHlGS (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)