European Youth Debate 2017 - Europe 2030: Beyond boundaries

After the success of the inaugural edition of the European Youth Debate in 2015, the decision has been taken to progress the project to new heights with an increased size, more international list of participants and a revised format of the whole event, focusing on a much more direct involvement of the participants. The European Youth Debate hosted 80 students from over 15 different countries, attending a variety of universities and degree courses all across Europe.
The participants were split into four different roundtables, each assigned its own individual topic and designated questions to be debated. The roundtable debates were chaired by European Generation members. The format of EYD 2017 departed from the formal rules of debating to more participatory style. The rationale was to create a policy forum for young European to have the opportunity to voice their concerns and come up with their own original ideas, proposals and solutions. Rather than simulating an EU institution or holding a formal debate with pre-assigned positions, we wanted to engage the delegates in a real discussion with their own arguments.
The members of the individual roundtables were responsible for setting their own agenda, outlining the problems they wanted to tackle (within the framework of the roundtable topic and question) and come up with proposed solutions through a debate.
Each roundtable was tasked with preparing a set of slides as a summary of their work to be presented and subsequently voted upon in the plenary session on the last day of EYD 2017. They were also responsible for selecting one representative spokesperson to be in charge of presenting the roundtable’s output.

In addition to the EYD event itself, we also decided to engage the local high schools in an essay competition. The high school students were asked to write a short essay, approaching the following outline:

This year, we are celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community (EEC), the predecessor of the European Union. Italy was one of the founding members. Over the 60 years, the European community has changed and shaped many areas of our lives – establishing the Schengen area and losing the national borders, adopting Euro as a new currency, harmonizing the education system and introducing the Erasmus exchange – all of that had a profound impact on every European.


What does it mean to you to be European? What do you think the citizens and countries in Europe have in common? What are you proud of in Europe and in what aspects do you see its shortcomings? Do you think you can be both Italian and European