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Welcome to UNDER 30, the podcast series by the EU-Council of Europe youth partnership that brings research results, explores trends in young people's lives and themes relevant for youth policy and practice.
The EU-CoE youth partnership is a co-operation programme between the European Commission and the Council of Europe in the field of youth, created in 1998, connecting youth research, policy and practice.
EU-Council of Europe youth partnership 2026
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Dariusz Grzemny: [00:00:00] Welcome to Under 30, the podcast which is brought to you by the EU Council of Europe Youth Partnership.
For almost three decades since 1998, the Youth Partnership, one of the longest standing cooperation programmes between the European Commission and the Council of Europe, has been building bridges between institutions, connecting youth policy, youth work, and youth research around issues that matter to young people and to democracy in Europe.
In this episode, we will discuss the new chapter of this cooperation that started on the 1st of January '26 and explore what it means for young people, youth workers, and youth policy across Europe. Welcome to everybody. Let's start with the short introductions.
Ingrid Bellander Todino: [00:01:00] Hello, I'm Ingrid Bellander Todino. I work in the European Commission, and I'm the Head of Unit for the Youth and Intergenerational Fairness in DG Education, Youth, Sport and Culture.
Tobias Flessenkemper: My name is Tobias Flessenkemper. I'm the Head of the Youth Department, which is part of the Directorate for Democracy of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. We have a number of tools at our disposals, including our partnership with the European Union
Clotilde Talleu: Hello, my name is Clotilde Talleu, and I have been the Manager of the EU-Council of Europe Youth Partnership since 2021, which is part of the Youth Policy Division of the Youth Department of the Council of Europe
Dariusz Grzemny: Okay, so let's start talking a little bit what's ahead of us andabout the youth partnership. I hope our listeners know a few things about partnership already. But, yeah, both the European Commission and the Council of Europe do - a [00:02:00] lot of things in supporting young people across Europe.
Sometimes there are separate programmes that are run within the European Union and the and the Council of Europe, but youth partnership is like a common thing. It's something that you do together. And these programmes have been going on for years now. But, overthe last years a lot of things have changed in Europe.
There is a lot of social, economic, technological, and political changes. So what do you see as the most important or pressing challenge facing young people in Europe nowadays?
And of course, with the challenges there come opportunities. So what gives you hope for the future?
Ingrid Bellander Todino: Yeah. Thank you, Dariusz. Well, we are of course living through a quite exceptional times, overlapping accelerating crisis, crisis after crisis. Based on what we have heard in consultations and dialogues with young people, I would say there are three main challenges. First of all, the [00:03:00] social economic insecurity for young people. Even where economies are relatively stable, many young people face unemployment or precarious employments, finding a job, housing prices through the roof. They're very often very highly educated, but not finding a job that match those skills and their aspirations.
So, that really means that there's a delayed transition into adulthood and it also weakens the trust in institutions. They feel that they... nobody will help them. The second is quite urgent, I think, is the mental health crisis. This has not only become a personal issue for young people, but a structural and societal one that I think we need to urgently address in any possible way.There are uncertainties at the global stage, but also at the personal level. Climate anxiety as one example, of course, overuse [00:04:00] of social media and access and exposure to harmful content online. All the fallout after the COVID pandemic or the lockdowns and there missing schools and having really issues with that. Wars, everything that's going on in, in our society and outside Europe is affecting young people a lot mentally. Third, which is a bigger issue, where people's role in our democracy is extremely important and there is quite a big democratic backsliding in the last decade. Political climate is polarized. Young people are facing disinformation. There's again, a declining trust in our democratic processes, and people don't participate and engage. So there's ultimately a lack of influence [00:05:00] if we are not trusting in our democracies You also asked about reasons for optimism. Of course, there's always another side of the coin. Digitalization and being online also provides opportunities and we know that our young people today are maybe more active.
Those who are active are extremely active. They participate, they learn, they lead activism, movements. We have seen the climate movements are being led by young people. They're driving equality on a much more larger scale, social justice. So, this gives me hope, but we know that this has to be recognized.
Young people need to be supported to really have a strong and resilient democracy.
Dariusz Grzemny: Thank you, Ingrid. What about the Council of Europe, Tobias? I suppose there are very similar things, but maybe there is something else to be added.
Tobias Flessenkemper: We would not be in a partnership if we wouldn't agree in the analysis part, of course. So thank you, Ingrid, for [00:06:00] sharing already a deep insight into the current situation. But I'd like to pick up from the youth side. And I think we should never forget that being young and being alive today is beautiful, and it's unique, and every young person has their unique life. And it's a wonderful process to be alive. And to be alive today is wonderful. And what we have been describing together also with the partnership and how we have conceived the partnership is to see, like those who work with young people who can help themselves and young people they work with, and the young people who work with other young people, how can we work on three kind of dimensions? And number one is, of course, the own realization of everyone in Europe. And Europe has become really very diverse. We see so many people who [00:07:00] don't want to accept that diversity. And a young person that hears, we have just the anti-hate speech week going on here in Strasbourg, that hears this kind of language being used vis-a-vis other Europeans, other humans living in Europe, is not good. And that's the first avenue of really all our engagement as the Council of Europe, to put human dignity, human rights, the young person with its rights into the center of our consideration and work, so that the young person can actually get on with their own lives and create their own lives. Now, that's is the first dimension. The second dimension, Ingrid already mentioned it is really the question of agency. And it's really difficult nowadays to find places where you feel you can actually matter, derive meaning from things, because we call it here in the Council of Europe, there is this information disorder around us. The power has [00:08:00] shifted very much away from classical institutions to huge corporations, for instance, in the internet. And of course, there are planetary processes like the triple planetary crisis, which make it extremely difficult to find an angle where you can actually work on. And I think that is the second element of our work together, to look at where people can develop agency. And then if you really look at the question of creating your own meaningful life, it's really the access to things. And it starts with the issues that Ingrid mentioned, access to, you know, housing, access to education, also for many young people, access to safety. Many young people are victims of violence, either from their own environment they're living in now or they come from environments where they have been threatened in their lives or in their [00:09:00] wellbeing. And we call that in the Council of Europe access to rights. Young people's access to rights. And this is obviously also a very important pillar of our partnership to look at what are the rights which is more complicated to access, what are the rights where there's good practice to access to rights in the member states of the European Union, in the Council of Europe 46 member states. That's really the three things.
Dariusz Grzemny: Thank you, Tobias. We have some challenges, we have some optimism, some opportunities. So, but still the two institutions are working together. So my next question will be more about the priorities. So what are the priorities of your institutions, of the Council of Europe and of the European Union, in the coming years, and where do you see the greatest potential for cooperation through youth partnership?
Ingrid Bellander Todino: Thank you, Dariusz, and also thank you, Tobias, for your insights as well in, in terms of addressing challenges and opportunities. In terms [00:10:00] of the key priorities for the next few years, the European commission, is now preparing, we are preparing the next EU Youth Strategy. The work from the Commission that will be the basis for the Council's EU Youth Strategy. We are reflecting and consulting on what would be the priorities that we should address. I think it's important to align those priorities again with the realities of young people that they are facing today, what they are telling us. There are a few key things that I think can enable this to happen.
First of all, participation in democratic life is key, providing not only the consultation with young people, of course, but also allowing those dialogues to lead into change, to allow them to shape policies that affect them. So we have set up quite a number of [00:11:00] mechanisms in past years to do that, so I hope we can consolidate and implement those tools better. We have structured mechanisms in place like the EU Youth Dialogue, of course, it's the biggest one. But then at the Commission side, the Commission President has her own Youth Advisory Board. Each commissioner meets regularly with young people on policy dialogues. So we have tools now to make this happen more systematically. I also personally think that we have to make stronger links between youth work and policy-making at all levels. I see youth workers as really the key enabler for young people to get the support, the agency that they want. So, this cooperation that we have set up between the EU and the Council of Europe and the Youth Partnership for me a key asset in this effort.We're combining here [00:12:00] complementary strengths. The partnership connects youth work, youth policy, and research Europe. So, looking ahead, I would like to make sure that we strengthen this collaboration, working on evidence-based youth policy that makes these links between research and policy making and strengthen the role of youth workin the youth actions that we are taking.
Tobias Flessenkemper: We had in last Octoberthe 10th Conference of Council of Europe Ministers responsible for youth, which was also attended by Commissioner Micallef and our Secretary General Alain Berset, and the youth ministers from all member states, forty-six plus many observers. And what was so important and interesting about that conference is that we put also into practice what Ingrid described. So almost all ministers shared their speaking time with young people. [00:13:00] And what has happened there at a level, at European level in Malta, is actually an example of really co-owning and co-creating the priorities. And the ministerial conclusions, the declaration from Malta, actually also gives us a lot of the indications that Ingrid described. And from a Council of Europe point of view, of course, as we don't have this programme at our disposal in the size that luckily exists in the European Union, we of course look at certain kind of ways of interacting with multipliers. And one of the elements that is really important as a priority is the defense of human rights defenders and the youth civil society. We have seen that young people who want to organize themselves find it difficult sometimes. Just a couple of weeks ago, we hosted here a symposium with the human rights defenders, young human rights defenders in [00:14:00] the field of environment. We mentioned the challenge of the triple planetary crisis, and we also know that young people who get engaged, as was described before, do not find it always easy. So the Council of Europe ministers really said, "We need to have trust in institutions. We need to reinstall trust in these democratic processes."
And that also means that youth civil society needs to be having its place. Another priority for us, of course, remains the war against our member state, Ukraine, and the Russian aggression. And that is linked to a number of other things. one, we of course engage with Ukraine. We are thinking of reflection process on how we can get Ukrainian experiences really embedded into our work. Ukrainian youth workers are engaged in trauma-informed youth work because youth work doesn't stop when there is a war. Young people don't stop being there. So there's a lot of things of areas of mutual learning in particular with this. But also [00:15:00] Ukraine has reminded us how fragile things can be, and also the foreign influence operations, all these kind of things that are there, where young people are targeted, particularly by all kinds of actors. We mentioned already the social media sphere, but another area we are starting to study now with the Council of Europe, with our observatory for electronic media, audiovisual media, is gaming. The gaming markets are a huge entry door for all kinds of messages to young people. So that's the second element, is like, how do we actually build a peaceful and inclusive society in Europe, despite the fact that also we have to confront war? Maybe, one particular issue I'm particularly proud and happy about is our youth partnership and the follow-up of the European Youth Work Convention. And I'm sure that Clotilde will also say a couple of words. But that's really what Ingrid also mentioned, the central part of youth work. [00:16:00] And what is youth work?
What are youth workers? Youth workers are, of course, first and foremost young people themselves. They do most of the youth work. But then, of course, professional youth workers, voluntary sectors, the whole kind of community engaging in youth work and creating opportunities for young people, and with young people in particular. And that kind of follow-up of the fourth European Youth Work Convention is, I think, one of the big priorities as well in our work. Now, as we are co-managed and have young people in our co-decision-making bodies, a lot of other priorities also come up all the time. Let me just mention a few. We have just adopted a recommendation on rural youth. We are about to have a draft recommendation in front of us on peace education for, with, and by young people. We still, of course, have the recommendation on climate action by young people and of course, many, many other things which are cross-cutting in the Council of Europe. And the one [00:17:00] cross-cutting main priority of the Council of Europe as we are entering here this summer period, is the New Democratic Pact for Europe, and we are actually hosting next week, we are recording here at the end of June, a huge youth event with all forty-six member states being represented to contribute to the democratic agenda for Europe.
Dariusz Grzemny: Thank you. So we are clear now about the priorities of both institutions. My next question, basically you kind of partly responded to because it's about youth work. The youth partnership is known for kind of navigating this interconnection between the youth work, youth research and youth policy.
So that has always been there. But now when you look at the three-year programme that has been launched on the 1st of January '26, the youth work actually has a very prominent role there. The focus is much greater than before. Why is this the right moment to place youth work more prominently on the agenda of the youth partnership?
Ingrid Bellander Todino: Yeah, [00:18:00] there is of course a follow-up on policy developments, including the Council Resolution on the European Youth Work Agenda from twenty twenty the roadmap of the Fourth Youth Work Convention from last year. So, there's a policy momentum, so to speak, to, to work on this and build on that and go further. I have not been a long time in this job, but one thing that comes back from every stakeholder is the reason why we need to focus on youth work is really that they are those who get access to the young people. They can navigate, help navigate young people through crisis, through their personal situation.
They provide a safe space, trusted relationships. They can develop skills and non-formal learning, which ultimately, again, comes back to creating resilient [00:19:00] citizens, allowing them to have critical thinking skills developed, make social connection, and also have a sense of belonging. So there, there is of course a policy reason, but then there's this, where do we get the best impact, really? And I truly believe that this is true that we here in Brussels, we don't get the same access to young people as the people on the ground, in the grassroots. That's obvious. So I think we need to support that better, recognize the role of youth workers, provide sufficient funding, allowing them to do their work, and also address the gaps because the level of youth work structures and youth spaces is very uneven across Europe.
And even where it was quite prominent and quite a lot of resources put, there have been cuts. So, this is I think an enabler that we need to focus on. And, this is why the work programme, [00:20:00] the work plan has emphasized this, and we are building this partnership to go even further. And, and as I said, would like to makestrategic priorities including youth work in the future strategy, a prominent space.
Dariusz Grzemny: Tobias, the Council of Europe has been training youth workers for a long time through educational programmes. So, why youth work now in the center of the programme?
Tobias Flessenkemper: You asked at the beginning what are the challenges, and we described a world of 2026, going forward into 2027, which is of course a very different world from when all of that started. For instance, the EU youth programmes and our partnership with the Council of Europe or the Council of Europe work started. And what we see in our instruments in the European Youth Centre in Strasbourg and Budapest, when we speak with the stakeholders, as we would say, I mean all the young people and partners and so on, what we see in the projects run by youth organizations in the European Youth Foundation, or when we're looking at what our quality [00:21:00] label youth centers in many member states are doing, we hear that there is a lot of shifts. There are a lot of shifts. We described some of them. But we're also going into a huge demographic shift in Europe. So the way how youth work was conceptualized in the 20th century has been extremely successful and useful for building up democracy. But now we're shifting really into a new era, including a huge demographic shift of generations going away, and the number of young people in proportion to the overall population also going in a different kind of ratio. There is a reason why the unit that Ingrid is heading has been renamed. So also youth work, we have to look at it, and we have to modernize in a way that actually puts young people in the center, fully in the center, and that the system can also adapt to these various external shocks and challenges in a way that creates these safer spaces for young people in youth work, through youth work, and [00:22:00] also is seen as a political priority. That's why I started with the ministerial conference. We haven't been there yet. We are not having enough voices for youth work from prominent leaders in society to say, "This is really making a difference. This is really beneficial." And this is not a waste of time, because investing in young people's lives and well-being and personal development is the education we need. We need educated people, fully grown people who actually feel comfortable in their skin and can actually navigate all these kind of things. Youth work is one of the answers. It's not the only answer, but it's a central answer because it has the one single element that is the voluntary nature of it. It is not an activity that people have to pursue, but it's an offer, it's actually nothing better for, you know, any of us, [00:23:00] regardless if we are young or not, is to take up offers and shape them with others. That's why youth work has become a central thing. From a bureaucratic point of view or political point of view rather, there is also a Recommendation of the Council on Youth Work, which dates from 2017. So that's almost ten years ago. Now, if you look at who is young today, who's turning 18 this year, these are the young people fully growing up during the age of the smartphone The smartphone was introduced in 2007. So we have a fully digitalizedgeneration, now, and that has also a huge effect on youth work, and that's why we should actually look at this together. And the follow-up of the convention and the work we're doing on, you know, policy development is part of this.
Dariusz Grzemny: Thank you, Tobias. Clotilde, the new programme has started, so let's go into details a little bit. Probably we're not going to tackle everything. So what are the main things that are going to happen in the next [00:24:00] three years, and which ones make you particularly excitedthat they are going to happen?
Clotilde Talleu: Thank you. Thank you, Dariusz. Indeed, as it was already mentioned, there is an important development within the youth partnership with this stronger emphasis on youth work and also the role of the youth partnership in the follow-up to the fourth European Youth Work Convention. So, maybe to give a little bit more details about what is expected also concretely. Our work on youth work focuses on three main directions. The first one is policy alignment, synergies, collaboration at European level, on youth work development. The second one is at the level of member states, is how we support, how we can encourage also youth work development and also the implementation of the conclusions of the Convention, how we can create opportunities for peer learning in particular. And the third one, and it's something that is for the youth partnership itself, is how we can translate some of the [00:25:00] conclusions of the Convention into something very concrete, tangible, concrete actions, practical tools and so on. What I'm really, I would say, looking forward to is first of all, and it was already touched upon by Tobias, is this communication action on the importance and value of youth work that we have in our work plan, meant to to foster its visibility, its recognition, as well across Europe. There is also the, the development of a European Code of Ethics for youth work, which is also something that is important and is based on, on what we have heard, you know, at the Convention. There is also, I would say, new initiative to enhance professional practices around the priority that we have already heard from the two institutions. For instance, you know, promoting and strengthening young people's critical thinking in the digital age. We talked about misinformation, disinformation, fake news. We'll work on this, you know, from a youth work perspective. Also advancing [00:26:00] and working on preparedness, peace education, and also young people's mental health and and well-being, and the role on youth work on this particular topic.
There is also in our work plan for these three years, a greater emphasis on strengthening youth organizations To help them ensure, you know, sustainable youth work. And we have a series of tools, training kits that are supposed to be finalized very soon on project management, funding and financial management, also on organizational management.
And we are working with youth organization on navigating shrinking civic space. So more or less, it's what we have on youth work. and. Of course, a strong focus for this programme is to ensure a tangible impact on the youth work community of practice. It's something that was also key. So youth work. There is also, as you already all mentioned, youth research that remain an important pillar of our work plan. So we'll [00:27:00] continue generating knowledge on young people's realities, on their challenges, to support evidence-based policies and practices. So, as key highlight for this year, there is this research symposium on young people's access to social rights that will be organized in September at the European Youth Center in Strasbourg. And it is a bit something new for, for us because we try to gather existing academic knowledge on that topic and to make it widely accessible across the youth field. And we'll also launch this year, we have already launched it, the first steps at least, a large scale research project on young human rights defenders. And it is also a key highlights of this programme because the aim of this research project is not only to better understand who the young human rights defenders are, what actions they undertake, what are the barriers and the risks they face, but it's also to support the development maybe of policies, programmes, support [00:28:00] mechanismsthat will be grounded in their lived, realities. So generating knowledge, but also making the knowledge accessible is also something that is a priority of this programme, because what is important is that what we are producing in terms of knowledge reaches and is useful to our target audiences. And for this programme, we'll test, I would say, some new formatsto disseminate the knowledge.
We have launched alreadyknowledge briefs series, which is our shorter format for our publications, and also Knowledge Break webinars, which we hope that will help practitioners, policymakers to engage maybe more easily also with recent research and findings. And, finally, maybe on youth policy, which is our third pillar. All of these three pillars are interconnected as you know, but we'll also support the partner institutions on youth mainstreaming and also the integration of youth perspective across policy areas. And we'll work together [00:29:00] with member states through peer learning activities, guidance and tools to implement these approaches, within their own context.
So as you can see, strong plans, ambitious, I would say,outcomes, strong commitment also on our side, as it was mentioned, to try to respond to the priority we have heard from member states, from youth organizations, from youth workers at the Convention as well, and from young people themselves. So it is in a nutshell what we have as highlights.
Dariusz Grzemny: Yes, really in the nutshell. I guess if you really want to know more about what's going to happen or what's happening, can always check on the social media of the Youth Partnership and also on the website, which is updated regularly, where you can also find the the call for different activities, and so on.
Okay, we are over time a little bit, but, there is one point I would like to discuss or hear your answers to is about your hopes and expectations from the partnership, from the EU-Council of Europe Youth Partnership for the [00:30:00] next three years after hearing what Clotilde said, the activities, and also after what you said before on the priorities.
So what are your hopes and expectations from the EU-Council of Europe Youth Partnership?
Ingrid Bellander Todino: Thank you. I think it's a partnership that has now been running for a long time, has produced a lot of interesting work, very good connections between different actors. So connecting the youth work again, youth policy and research, I think that is really the strength that bringing together different perspectives and actors, working in this areais really key. And I hope that this can be continued, and I don't have any doubts about that because in a society, in a policy situation where we are living in, in rapid change, policy makers need evidence-based knowledge and decisions taken based on evidence and research. We need dialogue, we need [00:31:00] cooperation among actors and exchange what works and what doesn't work. So this is the key to this partnership, I think, and that should continue well. And then again, from a strategic point of view, I've already mentioned so much, the recognition of youth work across Europe. This partnership really helps us providing those key elements and the evidence for that to make ... the reason why youth workers are so important, more tangible, based again on research, innovation, peer learning, capacity building, et cetera. Another aspect which I also picked up a little bit from Clotilde's and Tobias' presentations or comments was this the partnership can act as an early warning and a kind of a foresight mechanism in the youth field. You have mentioned the human rights defenders, social rights, climate and all those.
They are of course not new issues, but [00:32:00] you can really have the possibility tospecifically address those aspects. Artificial intelligence, how do we roll out those issues. I mentioned before the challenges of mental health. There are so many things that could be really a deep dive that the partnership can help with and get some more evidence and knowledge about those topics and give the possibility to recommend as well how we can address it at the policy level. I'm in all hopes, I'm very excited to continue this partnership.
Tobias Flessenkemper: The cooperation of international organizations is, of course, important, but also that these two international organizations or the European Union as a sui generisentity, and the Council of Europe bringing together so many countries committed to the same values is very important. And it instills me with hope that we have the tools for creating cooperation at all these levels. Because the partnership is a partnership of [00:33:00] people, of young people, of youth workers, of youth organizations, but also those who work in ministries and responsible positions, the youth, the agencies of the wonderful Erasmus Plus programme, all of these actors are coming together. We also talked about the research community.
We can talk about the European Youth Forum. We can talk about so many actors coming together, and that really is so important now, where so many forces are trying to pull things apart, so many forces are trying to say it cannot be done. But we can develop those tools, and we have the resources, and we have the people.
So that really instills me with a lot of hope. What we are doing, as Ingrid said, it will also always develop because we have to react, and the partnership has shown this flexibility. And the strategic outlook is the right one. The focus on youth work, following up on the Fourth European Youth Work Convention, the focus on getting better knowledge of what is going on, with a strengthened research pillar and a [00:34:00] joint policy dialogue, which is really the basis of keeping countries, people, and young people in Europe together.
Dariusz Grzemny: Thank you, Ingrid, Tobias, and Clotilde for your insights. We will probably learn more about those actions, activities, and initiatives in the next episodes of our podcast. Thank you all for listening, and of course, we invite you to listen to the next episode, which is coming soon.