20 September 2023

One of the key objectives of Connecting Youth Platform is empowering youth and involving them in the tables and foras that count. The dialogue between youth organizations and relevant institutions is indeed a crucial participation tool and an engaging element when it comes to incentivizing youth civic and active involvement and positioning.

Since many years, Connecting Youth supports, facilitates, engages and promotes constructive dialogue with the aim of providing dynamic and inclusive spaces to discuss policies while taking into consideration youth perspectives as well. Our angle is that such dialogue shall not be enabled only on the mainstream youth needs, but also on specific areas/sectors that need youth to be directly/indirectly involved and/or impacted.

Tirana Connectivity Forum 2023 (TCF2023) is one of the most important events for our region. This year’s edition focused on reframing the current discussions on EU Enlargement in Southeast Europe 6 (SEE6) placing them in a development-based approach.

Participation of CY partners at TCF 2023 further contributes to the impact of past and ongoing cooperation initiatives, such as: i) engagement of CY partners in policy research (see policy papers published by CY team, such as ‘What’s in for youth in the EIP for the WB6’ in 2021 and in the upcoming paper 'Role of WB Youth in the EU Integration Process’); ii) “Raising awareness on the Youth Manifesto in the Western Balkans” – a tour in the WB6 region where youth was invited to explore what’s in there for them in the INTERREG IPA programmes and EUSAIR Strategy; iii) advocacy activities in Brussels aimed at familiarizing youth councils with EU institutions, etc.

CY partners participated during the second day of the Forum which brought together the think tanks that have put forward different Enlargement scenarios. They presented the specifics and added value of different scenarios and discussed with policy-makers from the region and from EU on how they can contribute to the speeding of SEE6 accession to the EU. During the forum, Cohesion policy related programs applied in SEE6 and shared lessons learned from EU territorial cooperation programs were also another topic in which youth inclusion was singled out as a priority especially when it comes to EU crossborder cooperation programmes.

All these discussions enrich the background of young people and deepens their understanding of the progress and challenges to be addressed, thus creating the conditions for their contributions to be heard and taken into account. Furthermore, such events serve as a good moment to expand the network and identify potential partners for future collaborations.

Besides participating in the Forum, coming together as a team is important when it comes to enriching the inner discussions about the work that the platform is doing in the region. For this reason, the team took time to sit and reflect about the input and contribution that CY have done so far during this year and brainstormed about the future endeavors.