Thousands gather all over Europe to support the PES European Youth Plan in 111 events

Thousands gather all over Europe to support the PES European Youth Plan in 111 events

Supporters in 83 cities gathered to show their will that the European Youth Plan be implemented as soon as possible. The plan is initiated by the Party of European Socialists and aims to provide more and better jobs for young people, to extend the Erasmus + programme for even more students, to secure proper child care for all children in the EU and to grant easier access to culture for all young Europeans.  More on the plan at: www.youthplan.eu 

49 Youth Plan ambassadors, including MEPs or national MPs, members of the PES family or of Young European Socialists’ Association are currently promoting the plan, bringing it to a broader audience all over Europe, but it was on 16 November that thousands of people were involved in our Action Day under the motto ‘Act for Youth’.

111 events – street actions, meetings, conferences and family photos in front of emblematic buildings – with the #Act4Youth hashtag attracted somewhat between tens and a few hundred people each. All the events were focused on promoting the four key proposals of the plan: an extended, better financed Youth Guarantee, an Erasmus programme for all, a European Culture Cheque and the guarantee of decent living standards for children.

In Brussels, with the S&D Group in the European Parliament, PES President Sergei Stanishev, S&D President Gianni Pittella and EP President Martin Schulz attended the group meeting and posed for the family photo supporting the Youth Plan. The Economy Nobel Prize awardee Joseph E. Stiglitz – a guest speaker to the S&D group meeting – joined the action. 

PES President Sergei Stanishev said: “I am proud that our political family has achieved this degree of mobilization for a just cause: the cause of a future for the European youth. But I am prouder of the content of the Youth Plan, which will bring young Europeans hope and perspectives for their future. We have had enough of the austerity mantra, according to which the economy alone and only its neoliberal version where put at the top of the agenda. Now it is time that we put jobs and education and culture and children’s rights back at the top of the European agenda. These are the priorities of the progressive family”.

Actions of the Youth Plan were taken in most EU Countries plus Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the FYR of Macedonia, in cities like Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Athens, Lisbon, Madrid, Sofia and Vienna and many more. In London a group of members from different European member parties of the PES participated as well.

Check photos of the events all around EU here.