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Council of Europe takes a step forward on youth rights

14/10/2015

The Joint Council on Youth approved a Recommendation on Young People’s Access to Rights. The proposal will be sent to the Committee of Ministers, the Council of Europe’s decision-making body, for adoption.

The Joint Council, composed of 30 youth representatives of the Advisory Council (AC) and Government representatives, met at the European Youth Centre in Strasbourg to discuss youth policies of the Council of Europe.

The meeting, held on 12-14 October, is the second of the bi-annual meetings of the Advisory Council and Joint Council on Youth and the last meeting of the AC mandate of 2014-2015. The Joint Council is one of the few spaces in Europe where young people are included in the decision-making process.

The Joint Council decided to launch a study on “innovative forms of youth participation” and also discussed co-management as well as a possible recommendation on youth work following the second Youth Work Convention under the Belgian Chairmanship in April.

The No Hate Speech Movement campaign having been extended for the period 2016-2017, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjørn Jagland, inaugurated a No Hate Statue at the Youth Centre.

The European Youth Forum has an observer status in all the aforementioned bodies and organises the elections of 20 out of the 30 advisory Council members.

Photo credit: David (Flickr)

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The Advisory Council works during a mandate of two years and meets twice a year. The meeting of the new AC will be in the European Youth Centre Budapest in April 2016.

More information on the co-management: http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/youth/Coe_youth/co_management_en.asp

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