In this sixth episode of YEU Podcast season 6, we talked about one of YEU’s advocacy activities: taking part in the EU Youth Dialogue. To discover more about it, I had the pleasure to interview Yağmur Aşıla, the President of YEU, who will represent us in this forum.
The EU Youth Dialogue is a forum for reflection and consultation of young Europeans on the priorities, implementation and follow up of European cooperation in the field of youth. It is the most important and most elaborate youth participation mechanism in policy-making in the Union. This participatory process involves young people, youth organisations, policy and decision makers, as well as experts, researchers and other civil society actors from all over the European Union and beyond. For this 12th edition of the EU Youth Dialogue, the trio presidency will be composed of Ireland, Lithuania and Greece. It is an 18-month cycle, running from July 2026 to December 2027. This year it focuses on the “European Youth Dialogue #4: Information and Constructive Dialogue” and most importantly the digital dialogue side.
Yağmur presented to us the goal and the timeline of the EU Youth Dialogue. She explained that it is very important for YEU to participate in this forum because it is a place where we can directly impact the decision making process and the theme matches YEU expertise and goals in digital skills and intercultural dialogues. For example we can share the work made during our project Ethical Surfers in 2025. She also shared with us YEU’s methods to include marginalised youth in this kind of event thanks to our broad network of MOs, our goal to involve disadvantaged, NEET (not in education, employment or training) and digitally excluded youth and our expertise in non-formal education with workshops from our PET members. We also make sure to adapt our methods to their realities. Lastly, Yağmur shared to us the key points that she will present on YEU behalf during the first EU Youth Conference in Dublin such as the importance of non-formal education, holding social media companies accountable for the online environment they are creating and the need for physical spaces where young people can come together and disconnect from their screens.
You can listen to this episode on Spotify!
