The four-day summit, the first of its kind, gathered around 15 representatives from Europe and 40 from Latin America and the Caribbean in order to exchange best practices in the field of education and youth employment initiatives. Both regions face similar challenges when it comes to high levels of youth unemployment and in both regions there are strong youth movements that want to make their voice heard about it.

In this context, workshops focused on topics such as ‘Participation of youth in the promotion of labour market policies and youth rights’ or ‘Tools and strategies for sustainable youth employment’. For the CESI Youth, it was especially important to underscore the importance of empowering young workers and enabling them to live an independent life – and to carry this idea across Europe’s borders, too.

At the end of the conference, a declaration with key demands was adopted. It stipulates, inter alia, that:

• Youth stakeholders, including from trade unions, must be allowed a greater role than has been the case the so far when it comes to designing, implementing, and monitoring youth employment policies such as the EU’s youth guarantee scheme.
  In this context, the CESI Youth, too, would be glad to be consulted more often by policy makers.

• Voluntary labour mobility is an important issue for young people and should be further facilitated.
  This demand is broadly in line with CESI’s work on voluntary labour mobility more generally. Just some weeks ago, in March, it adopted an agreement between two of its member trade union organisations from Germany (dbb) and Spain (SATSE) with a view to practically enabling the movement of health sector workers between the two countries.

* Community of Latin American and Caribbean States