European Youth Forum (YFJ from Youth Forum Jeunesse) is a platform of 99 European youth NGOs whose aim is to provide those organizations an opportunity to fight for youth rights using this unique platform, recognized by all the foremost political institutions all over the world.

Twice a year YFJ has its General Assembly, where all the most important issues are discussed and decisions are made. In the meantime MOs convene in the frame of a Council of Members - COMEM, where they are provided with a possibility to deliberate on what they deem important for them at present and to debate on progress in implementation of the crucial points of the YFJ Work Plan.
The last Council of Members took place in an ancient Portuguese city Braga, from 17th to 20th of November 2011.

The agenda of the meeting expected participants to discuss the following issues:

1. Pan-European Campaign "Vote @ 16"
2. Numerous policy documents, including Draft Resolution for United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development 2012 (Rio+20)
3. YFJ Strategic Priorities 2013-2018
4. Future of the Youth in Action Programme
5. Report of the Board and Secretariat
6. Financial report
7. Elections of 20 members of the YFJ to the Advisory Council on Youth

Find in the following paragraphs a short insight into each of the aforementioned points.

"Vote @ 16" campaign is now approaching to its successful conclusion with some European states being ready to implement the idea into their legislation. So, thanks to the efforts of the YFJ, young people of the age of 16 on are likely to get the right to vote for candidates to parliaments, or on the post of the president, like their peers have been doing in Austria so far.

Regarding the Draft Resolution for United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development 2012 (Rio+20), there was a Policy group organized where its participants had the opportunity to contribute to drafting final text of Resolution to be presented to the attention of the parties of the Conference in Rio in summer 2012.

Strategic priorities 2013-2018: YFJ has so far had a practice of working in line with Strategic Priorities adopted for five year perspective. Besides that a Work plan for two years term is adopted. Since the previous Strategic Priorities expire in 2012, the Board initiated discussion on Strategic Priorities for the next cycle.
Fruitful discussions in the working groups resulted in a set of valuable recommendations from the side of the YFJ MOs that shall be now implemented into practice by the Board and Secretariat. However, this round of consultations was not final, so there is still a room for us to feed in.

One of the most interesting and at the same time controversial issue to be discussed was the one concerning the future of the Youth in Action programme.
As the process of reform of the Youth in Action programme is approaching to the end, the YFJ made a final effort to ensure all of its MOs have had an opportunity to express their concerns and share their views in this regard. It shall be admitted that although final version of the Youth in Action 2.0 has not been published by the time of discussions, some people who have access to the European higher political establishments told they are in a way unhappy with how the programme will look like. Time will show...

Most part of the second working day was dedicated to presentation of Board report, Secretariat report and separately Financial report.

Finally, the time to proceed to the session of elections came. This time full delegates were supposed to choose 20 representatives of the YFJ MOs for representation the platform in the co-management system of the Council of Europe, namely speaking in the Advisory Council on Youth (AC on Youth) for the period of 2012-2013. It should be noted in this regard that YEE was amongst those 20 elected organizations, which means we retain a seat in AC on Youth in the next mandate.

I shall admit it was quite intensive but at the same time interesting meeting, with lots of fruitful discussions on a wide variety of issues, which are undoubtedly very topical for the contemporary youth. During one of the informal evenings we were witnesses of quite an official procedure - election of the "Youth capital 2014". This time the sweet taste of the victory experienced Thessaloniki, that will take over the status of the youth capital from Slovenian Maribor in 2014.

Dear Friends! That was a short overview of the main events taking place a couple of weeks ago in sunny Portugal. However let me remind you of my readiness to answer any question that might occur once you have read this article.

Kyrylo Ivliev
External Relations Officer of YEE 2011-2012