Transitions

Thursday started with a meeting with European Commission's Vice President Wallström and a pleasant exchange of views on how to increase the voters' turnout at the upcoming European elections, especially among young people, and the participation of young women in European politics; it continued with another meeting with representatives from EU countries' National Youth Councils, to discuss our vision on the future of youth policy in the EU and the next steps of structured dialogue between young people and the EU institutions; and finished with the annual Open Doors' reception at the YFJ offices, which was attended by many, many guests from YFJ Member Organisations, European institutions and other civil society partners, and therefore was a huge success. Friday was much less interesting, as it was spent at a weird meeting with the European Commission's Youth Unit in which, and despite of the fact that its main topic was "structured dialogue", dialogue was impossible due to the shortsighted vision and hard of hearing condition that affect many of these civil servants who seem to be convinced that both "citizens" and Member States' representatives are no less than totally unable to think for themselves and should therefore be grateful to be told what to think and do. It's difficult to remain a convinced European when you go through these experiences too often... anyway, as it happens to nightmares, the meeting eventually came to its end and I could then enjoy a nice evening out, celebrating Inês' birthday first and dancing through the night at Canoa Quebrada afterwards. The consequence was that yesterday was a slow, yet very nice day spent at home, and mostly in the sofa... Today, I will soon go out and enjoy the company of good friends and, hopefully, a bit of sunny weather too. Tomorrow will be time to go back to signatures' hunting in Strasbourg and, then, in one week, I will be finally gone for holidays! I am really looking forward for it!