Youth and Europe
Programme at the Egmont Palace

Since 2002, EGMONT - Royal Institute for International Relations organises an awareness-raising programme about the European integration for 17-19 years old pupils (last year of secondary school) at the Egmont Palace. This programme is particularly needed given the age of this group, because they will have to vote for the first time of their life at the occasion of the European Parliamentary elections in June 2009.

The European Union is often perceived among the youth as an unpleasing and complicated issue, without any link with their daily life. An ignorance of European realities is caused by a negative image of the EU (high costs, bureaucracy, heavy burdens of the widening, etc). In addition, facing a world considered to be increasingly complex, the citizen's expectations with respect to the EU are growing ever more, whether it is on social, economic, environmental or security matters.

Starting from this paradoxical report, it has been decided to organize so called "awareness-raising days" for the young citizens. The objective is to stimulate their interest for Europe and to provide them the tools so that, tomorrow, they can fully take part in the democratic life within the Union. In order to break the numerous a priori and to meet this need for objective information, EGMONT insists on the concrete achievements of the EU as well as on the benefits of European integration in simply and easy-understanding words.

This programme consists of a half-day session which contains four parts. It is taking place in the building of the Egmont Palace in Brussels. It consists of:

• a historical introduction of the EU with audiovisual display.
• a debate with a European MP or a Belgian senior official specialised in European affairs. The pupils are offered the occasion to ask questions to a practitioner (view this example).

The participation at this session is entirely free-of-charge, except for the travelling costs which stays at charge of the school.

For any further information regarding this project or to participate, please contact:

Alexandre Buchet
Project officer
phone : +32 (0)2 213 40 28
e-mail: .

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