Symposium on Youth Participation in a Digitalised World

The event was opened by welcoming remarks by Snežana Samardžić-Marković, Director General of Democracy at the Council of Europe, Tibor Navracsics, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth And Sport, and László Szabó, Hungary Parliamentary State Secretary and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The Symposium was also the occasion to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Council of Europe’s European Youth Centre in Budapest.

As keynote speakers, Roman Gerodimos, researcher, presented his findings on the civic attitudes of young people online, and Julia Kloiber, of the Open Knowledge Foundation, provided examples of how young online activists have used their digital skills to have an impact on local political decisions. Both agreed that digital tools are not a “magic solutions” for youth participation. Ida Birkvad, Youth Forum Board member, talked on behalf of the European Youth Forum. She touched upon the relations of digital participation with youth work and highlighted the need to invest in existing mechanisms of democracy, such as youth organisations, rather than create new parallel structures.

Key messages from the symposium, which were presented to different stakeholders such as policy makers, researchers, youth workers and youth organisations, included the need to address the “divorce” between young people and political institutions and to provide space for discussions toward a better understanding of youth participation, especially digital participation. The need for digital tools to be coupled with effective offline participatory mechanisms was also highlighted.