30th Session of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities – 22 to 24 March 2016

Active participation of 40 youth delegates in the 30th Congress session (22-24 March 2016)

The Congress of Local and Regional Authorities sees youth participation at local and regional levels as an important policy in the promotion of democratic citizenship. Since October 2014 the Congress has therefore invited young people, chosen following a selection procedure, to take part in its sessions, to have their say in the debates and to exchange with Congress members on the issues on the agenda.

In 2016, for the first time, the Congress has invited a group of youth delegates to participate in both March and October sessions. This represents an opportunity for the youth delegates to become more involved with the Congress’ work and, back home between sessions, to promote grass-roots projects in line with the Congress’s theme for 2016: Ethics and Transparency at Local and Regional Level.

This year the youth delegates come from forty countries,[1] are aged between 16 and 30 and have a variety of different backgrounds, students, youth workers, volunteers, youth activists, etc.

During the March session, youth delegates prepared joint contributions for the debates on integration of refugees and on mainstreaming of youth issues and put a question to the Representative of the Committee of Ministers as well as participating actively in the other wide-ranging debates on the agenda.

A Twitter wall installed in the hemicycle allowed the general public and others to make their voices heard during the debates by using the hashtag #CoECongress.

File 30th Session of the Congress



[1] Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", Turkey, Ukraine and United Kingdom.