Make it youthful

I spent the last two days in Strasbourg, trying to convince Members of the European Parliament to sign a written declaration calling on the European Union institutions to listen to young people when developing policies that affect them, underline the cross sectoral nature of youth policy, and ensure genuine dialogue with young people and their organisations. A written declaration is a text on a matter falling within the European Union's sphere of activities, and is used by MEPs to launch or realunch a debate on a subject that comes within the EU's remit. If the declaration is signed by a majority of the MEPs, it is forwarded to the President and included in the minutes. If it is not signed by a majority of MEPs, the declaration lapse after three months. Submitted by five members from five different countries, and four different political groups, on April 21, this declaration needs to be signed by 393 MEPs before July 24, in order to be successful. When the week started and we arrived in Strasbourg, 200 MEPs had signed it; today there were 249 of them. Not bad, but maybe not good enough...

Running after the MEPs and trying to convince them of why they should sign the declaration or simply begging for them to do it, is not pleasant, not very efective and rather tiring. The European Parliament is a huge complex, the almost 800 MEPs sit in different buildings with several floors and many corridors, and the declaration needs to be signed at a certain place within certain periods of time. Some MEPs are nice and understanding, and they listen to you even when they don't support your ideas and therefore don't intend to sign the declaration; others try to be nice (and get rid of you fast) by promising that they will sign it, even though they will never do it; the worse ones, however, are those who deny their own basic status as representatives of the citizens, by refusing to even listen to you and doing it in rude terms. And if you're thinking os someone specific, I am sorry to inform that they can be found in all political groups and come from every country...

The exercise can be very frustrating, for these and many other reasons related to the EP and its procedures; but what is more frustrating for me is to see that this would be much easier if everyone would take their responsibilities seriously and put the necessary personal and organisational efforts needed to perform the tasks they took and, in some cases, even asked for. Soon we will know if this declaration will be signed by the majority of the MEPs or not. The aim is, of course, to achieve this majority and, therefore, it is obvious that the outcome will influence greatly the evaluation that will be done afterwards. But, regardless of the final result, I hope that the YFJ will be able to learn lessons from the process. Because, as it happens very often in people's and organisations' lives, the way can be more important than the final destination...