Jury decides on 2017 European Youth Capital
The European Youth Capital (EYC) 2017 has been decided by an independent, high-level jury after a meeting in Brussels on Friday, November 14th. The EYC 2017 winner will be officially announced at an award ceremony on Wednesday 19th November, as part of a Youth Fair, which is taking place ahead of the the European Youth Forum’s General Assembly in Cluj-Napoca, Romania (which is EYC 2015).
The European Youth Capital (EYC) title is awarded to a different European city each year by the European Youth Forum. During an EYC year, the host city holds events and projects designed to demonstrate the active, essential role that young people and youth organisations can (and do) play in society. In 2017, the title will be awarded for the ninth time, and was first awarded to Rotterdam in 2009. Since then, it has been awarded to Turin, Antwerp, Braga, Maribor, current EYC Thessaloniki, Cluj-Napoca and Ganja.
The high-level 10-person EYC jury is independent, featuring representatives from a broad range of European institutions, universities, youth organisations and media outlets. An initial list of nine applicants was whittled down to a final shortlist of Cascais (Portugal), Galway (Ireland), Perugia (Italy), and Varna (Bulgaria). These four cities progressed to the second round of the competition, where they presented an extensive draft programme of youth-related cultural, social and political events and activities. Feedback was then provided by the jury as to how each application could be improved, with an October 12th deadline for final submissions.
Last week, the jury made a final decision after hours of extensive debate. The jury members noted that all four applicants were very, very strong, and that it was incredibly difficult to pick a winner. The European Youth Capital 2017 will be announced at a ceremony in Cluj Napoca on Wednesday 19th November and you can follow the events on our Twitter, Facebook, and website.
More info on the EYC is available here: www.europeanyouthcapital.org
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