This year two representatives of YEE attended the General Assembly of the European Youth Forum (YFJ). It took place on 16-20 November 2016 in a small village Kamchia located close to Varna, Bulgaria, the European Youth Capital 2017.

Natalia Luchko (Main Coordinator) and Jovana Mirjanić (Project Officer) represented YEE at this event.

The General Assembly is the highest decision making body of the European Youth Forum and therefore a lot of important decisions have been made. There were a lot of elections and reports. 250 representatives of 103 member organisations attended the General Assembly. 

The meeting started with an exciting event on the evening of 16 November. First the delegates attended the public plenary on youth rights with Rune Brandrup from The United Nations Population Fund. Then we joined the local young people for the announcement of the European Youth Capital 2019. There were presentations of 5 city candidates - each group presented their city and explained why it was important for the young people to get this title.

But there can be only one winner: congratulations to Novi Sad, Serbia!

The following day started early and got straight to business: we needed to discuss many documents. First there were reports presented by the current YFJ Board, Financial Control Commission (FCC) and the Consultative Body on Membership Applications (CBMA). Then the assembly voted on membership applications and welcomed new organisations. The second half of the day was dedicated to the development of the Work Plan 2017-2019 and debates between candidates for the Board.

18 November was an exciting day for the network. The first half of the day consisted of thematic squares run by Youth Forum members: Youth Rights, Norm criticism, Digital Participation, Migration and Human Rights, Good governance, UN Youth delegates, Democratic and open elections, XIX World Festival for Youth, Future of the European Voluntary Service. The YFJ Secretariat also facilitated a series of workshops on advocacy coordination.

After lunch there were elections - the new Board, FCC and CBMA were elected for the next two years.

The last working day of the General Assembly was dedicated to the very detailed discussion and voting on the future Work Plan and other important documents of the network.

This event marked a new beginning for the European Youth Forum - so let’s see the future achievements of the network.

Congratulations to the newly elected Board:

President: Luis Alvarado Martinez

Vice-Presidents: Dejan Bojanic and Carina Autengruber

The Board: Kristen Aigro, Tina Hocevar, Zuzana Vaneckova, Mari Stromsvag, Andrea Casamenti, Sebastian Rood, Nafsika Vrettaki and Ville Majamaa.