Ska together with The Greens/EFA and the Federation of Young European Greens (FYEG) in the European Parliament conducted a conference in Brussels with more than 200 young people from all over Europe on the 9th of April.

The young people came together to discuss European policy and ways to get the youth out of the crisis. In different workshops they came up with demands that were later discussed with representatives of the Parliament and the Commission.

The participants of the conference came up with the following demands to European policy-makers:

Education

• Equal access to education meaning that tuition fees should be free to everyone with special emphasizes on transparency.
• Students with special needs should be provided with special support from educational institutional including free of charge of the tuition fees.
• Degree should be recognized equally across Europe, and scholarship should be reflecting the GDP per country.

Democracy

• Introduce the usage of open source in public institutions.
• The citizens of EU should be educated and informed about the political processes at the EU level and especially on how they can get involved and influence. We demand a lowering of the voting age to 16 years old.
• The role of EP should be reinforced:
  • Competence to decide on EU budget with their own resources;
  • To initiate policies;

Job creation

• Young People should be supported and educated when searching or creating job for themselves;
• Young People should be encouraged to join the Trade Unions and get organized.
• A minimum guaranteed income should be warranted for each citizen at EU.

Environment

• Promote Green economy, especially job creation, redistribution EU funding for renewables and support local and small scale green initiatives.
• Introduce stricter, more ambitious, and better-enforced targets on greenhouse gas emissions, energy efficiency and renewable energy.
• No development of any new form of unconventional fossil fuel (tar sands, shale gas and offshore drilling).
• More democracy and transparency in EU institutions when creating environmental decisions and policies.  Matters.

Social Europe

• Paid parental leave for both parents.
• Implementing EU minimum wages.
• Fight against social dumping.