Youth Agenda 2009 - Click to download!

Over nine months prior to the EP elections in June 2009, several hundred young people from all parts of the EU contributed to the discusion on the most important issues for young people in modern Europe and now the results of all our conventions are collected in the Youth Agenda 2009 – the final publication of AEGEE’s Y Vote 2009 – European Youth Choice campaign.

These 12 youth demands are presented together with the priorities of all political groups represented in the European Parliament with the contributions from

• Jerzy Buzek, MEP
  President of the European Parliament
• Joseph Daul, MEP
  Chairman of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) in the EP
• Martin Schulz, MEP
  Chairman of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the EP
• Guy Verhofstadt, MEP
  Chairman of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe in the EP
• Rebecca Harms, MEP
  Chairwoman of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance in the EP
• Lothar Bisky, MEP
  Chairman of the Confederal Group of the European United Left – Nordic Green Left in the EP
• Nigel Farage, MEP
  Chairman of the Europe of Freedom and Democracy Group in the EP
• as well as
  Janez Potocnik
  European Commissioner for the Environment

We want to thank everybody who made the success of our campaign possible – the people who worked hard as national managers or local organizers, the active participants at our conventions and campaigning actions, our patrons and supporters and everybody else who contributed in one way or another to Y Vote 2009.

You can now download the Youth Agenda 2009 here:
http://tinyurl.com/youthagenda/

Enjoy reading and don’t forget to go to vote also in the next European Parliament elections in 2014!

April 26 – 28 London >> April 29 Portsmouth >> April 30 Southampton >> April 30 Oxford >> May 2 Bristol >> May 3 Cardiff >> May 5 Swansea >> May 6 Wolverhampton >> May 7 Birmingham >> May 8 Coventry >> May 9 Cambridge >> May 11 Norwich >> May 12 Leicester >> May 13 Nottingham >> May 14 Derby

The Isle of Y – Launching Convention in London

The launching convention took a look into the European Union’s institutions structure and their decision making process, with presentations by experts from the leading think thanks on the European affairs (CEPS, Belgium, CER, United Kingdom and Montesquieu Institute, Netherlands). Young participants worked in three creative and thematic groups: Piccadilly Circus team, Hide Park team and Camden Town team, which tackled the topics of the EU’s historical development, the EU treaties, and the different approaches to formalize the future for the hybrid combination that makes up the EU. The three groups also organised and performed a series of launching activities in the different settings of London, including the inauguration of the campaign tour bus on the final day of the event, which were covered by the EuroparlTV and Euronews. Two debates were organised with the Members of the European Parliament as well as an open debate on the future of Europe, at the end of the event, which was organised and moderated by a professional facilitator.

The event gathered young people from different parts of the UK and Belgium, Romania, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia and Spain.

Into the Oxbridge – Y Vote UK Tour Part I

The first part of the Y Vote UK tour visited South West England, Wales and the Western Midlands. The activities included street activities, campus debates, information stands, concerts, meetings with student unions and other youth initiatives, visit to the Wales Assembly, participation in the Oxford Spring Day celebration, interviews for local media and workshops on all topics of the Youth Agenda 2009, UK Euro-skepticism, the British political system and the UK media coverage of the EU affairs. Similar formats were used in the following weeks of the tour.

Tour crew was composed by young campaigners from Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain and the UK. Each week campaign crew was changed with 10 new members – 40 in total.

This is England! – Y Vote UK Tour Part II

The second part of the tour continued in West and East Midlands and East of England with above mentioned formats of activities. Particular focus was given to the informational stands, promotional stunts and thematic meetings in the university settings – in Birmingham, Coventry, Cambridge and Nottingham, in interaction with student unions and European and political student societies.

May 15 Stoke-on-Trent >> May 16 Liverpool >> May 18 Bolton >> May 19 Manchester >> May 20 Sheffield >> May 21 Bradford >> May 22 Leeds >> May 23 York >> May 24 Newcastle >> May 26 Sunderland >> May 27 Glasgow >> May 28 Stirling >> May 29 – June 3 Edinburgh

Let’s go North! – Y Vote UK Tour Part III

The highlights of the third step of the tour, around North West England, included a series of workshops and debates on the importance of the EU and the European Parliament’s increasing role in the EU decision making (by Montesquieu Institute), wide street actions in Liverpool, Bolton and Bradford, full day of campus activities at the University of Sheffield, joint activities with the institutional campaign’s Choisebox in Manchester,  online campaigning workshops and production of campaigning videos and interviews and blogging contributions (in cooperation with thinkaboutit.eu European blogging competition).

To the Highlands! – Y Vote UK Tour Part IV

The final week of the campaign toured through Yorkshire and the Humber, North West and North East England and Scotland. Its pick were valuable meetings with several UK Members of the European parliament (including an EP Vice President) and MEP candidates. Week was also marked with workshops and campus debates and information activities, meetings with student representatives and international students, concerts and street performances.

European Youth Choice – Final Convention in Edinburgh

The final convention in Edinburgh was a stage for the final analysis of the ten ‘Issues that Matter’ from the Youth Agenda 2009 document – education, employment, creativity, mobility, citizenship, multiculturalism, migration, regionalism, European social model and the relations between the EU and the world. We presented our ideas on these topics to 4 members of the European Parliament and MEP candidates from all major political groups, and we discussed them with the representatives of the British youth, together with British experiences in youth participation.

We used the last days and hours before the voting day, June 4, to exercise the best campaigning techniques on the streets of the Scottish capital (including the full day activities during the Edinburgh Marathon and the visit to the Scottish Parliament).

The event brought together youth representatives from Scotland, England and Wales and Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Greece.

Convention outcomes were presented in four statements published at the end of each day of the event in 11 EU languages:

‘Why Vote on Education and Mobility?’, (May 30)
‘Why Vote on Jobs and Social Security?’, (May 31)
‘Why Vote on Diversity, Citizenship and Participation?’ (June 1) and
‘Why Vote on Europe in the World?’ (June 2)

Wednesday, May 27^th 2009 

The night before we were more tired as we used to be, maybe our walks around Sunderland on Tuesday were much more efficient that we had thought… I am not sure, but whatever it was made us get up before 10 AM without any problem J. That was going to be the last morning we had breakfast in The George Hotel in Osborne Road, Newcastle. 

We took all our stuff with us again after 3 days at the same place with new destination: Glasgow! The biggest city of Scotland! It took us 3 hours to get there with the super-van driven by Miha (as usual), maybe more because the GPS sometimes got crazy and changed our route… very funny. But anyway, in the middle of the way we stopped the van in some private property in order to see the remains of the Hadrian’s Wall, the wall that marked the northern boundaries of the Roman Empire in Britain. While some of us were taking pictures on it, the rest of the group stayed at the van just in case the owner of the house complains about our parking… 

At the same time the van was being invaded by loads of  animal manure smells every 10 minutes, I was looking at everyone of us. Half of the group was sleeping with sunglasses covering their morning faces, Thomas was typing his day on the blog with the laptop, Casper was checking our route on the GPS and Miha was driving perfectly as always… 

We reached Glasgow at 2.30 PM. I still do not know how but we could park the van in one of those streets. Quickly we took all our promotion material and looked for Caledonian University in order to stay there 3 or 4 hours doing campaign. During those hours we met more people than any other day, why? Because we had such a great stand in front of the library. Actually it was a very good idea because students had their finals on that week, so lots of them were studying over there. A bunch of them approached to us to get to know what we were doing. 

We got lunch at the cafeteria, splitting the group in two teams. I think street action that day was one of the best we had in the whole week. Although young people might not know about politics as much as old people could know because of the experience in life, it seems to me that they are more open-minded so it was easier talking to them about European Elections and encouraging them to vote the fourth of June. Some of the old people I found on the streets during the tour think that European Elections are a waste of time because nothing is going to change… that is what I am talking about… 

But hey, we had a new surprise! Thomas brought a new girl into the group while he was holding one of the posters on the streets. She introduced to us (she was from Czech Republic) claiming that she wanted to help us because our work was so nice J 

After our street action, we were taken to the European Restaurant in the centre of Glasgow by Marco, one serbian friend of AEGEE living in Glasgow, who took us to watch the UEFA Champions League Final: Barça – Manchester (It is not necessary to say who won it… hehe – just in case Barcelona! -). 

After the game we went to the hotel, changed our clothes and got ready for an international party in some cool club. I do not have to point out that we danced like party animals (as always) and we had lots of fun… Even going to bed late, we know the next morning we will do our best for sure!  

Belén, AEGEE-Alicante

Having found the University of Durham again we prepared our promotion material mainly the holy three B’s: bracelets, balloons and badges. Ok we also had stickers, beer mats and printed information about the elections by the way…

After some energizer-games we met Anthony Crowther from the Durham Students’ Union. Kate, the girl we already met the day before in York, joined us and we went to the canteen of the university where we could gain some more experience in traditional British lunch: Yorkshire pudding and crumble for example.

The weather still was very fine and so we had a guided tour through the campus of Durham with Anthony explaining us how the University works, what the students can do, where they can live and in which academic building the European Union has invested.

The group couldn’t always follow the information, as every minute was used for promoting the European elections. Once we passed a meadow with many students sitting on the grass and enjoying the good weather. Half of the campaigning group then spread out and ‘invaded’ the little park giving away balloons and bracelets and reminding the people to vote on June the 4^th.

After a little walk through a beautiful natural park with a bucolic river we came to a special place: the setting where was shot a part of the Harry Potter films.
When we had finished the tourist part of this day we went into town for some new street actions. As it was a sunny Sunday many people where in the centre and many voters could be reached. But the participants had to face some negative and frustrating turning-aways and rejections. Twice people throw our gifts back in the faces of two of us and you could see some information we gave to people on the street. So at the end of one hour nobody but Mario and Thomas had the energy and the motivation to keep on talking to people.

For the evening the parents of Kate invited us to their house to have a barbecue in their beautiful garden. We really enjoyed this time and this place within in the group by playing the murderer-game and listening to Thomas who played the viola…

Later we all went back to the bus and Miha drove us safely as always to our next accommodation: the George Hotel in Newcastle…

Carolin, AEGEE-Passau

Check out the Y Vote UK blog at http://uktour2009.wordpress… and don’t forget to vote at the European Parliament Elections, June 4 – 7, 2009!!!!

DON’T FORGET TO VOTE!!!