On Wednesday, 9th January 2013, Luis Alvarado Martinez and Lucille Rieux, President and Secretary General of AEGEE-Europe met Philippe l’Eglise-Costa, the advisor on European Affairs of the President of France, Francois Hollande.
The Comite Directeur had asked for this meeting shortly after M.Hollande’s election to the French presidency. He is characterised by his strong interest in youth issues and his pro-European attitude. In fact, Hollande took up young people’s interests as the core element of his election campaign and once he was elected, he gave a speech about his conviction for the construction of a strong federal Europe.
The appointment was finally set for January 2013. Luis and I decided that during the short time given with M. L’Eglise-Costa, we would focus on the thorny issue of the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020 of the European Union which is currently negotiated by the Council. Our aim during the meeting was to defend AEGEE’s position, to stress the need for investing in youth and education, and to save these small budget lines. Our position on this issue was that if cuts are made to small budget lines (like the one of education and youth), the effects will be a lot more painful than in case these cuts were made to a larger budget line. M.Leglise-Costa assured us that France was in agreement with our ideas and the government is doing its best to preserve the education and youth budget. He informed us that currently, the three countries that are considering cutting this budget are Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. This interesting information made us realize how important it is to address directly the decision makers and to make it clear that young people are fully aware of the decisions that are made on their behalf, and that they also want to contribute to them.
We managed to convince M. Leglise-Costa of the importance of supporting the work of youth organizations, especially by making sure that the administrative grants in charge of them won’t disappear with the new programme cycle starting from 2014. Another topic we touched upon during our meeting was the possibility to develop a co-management approach to youth topics within the European Institutions.
This meeting was a good opportunity for AEGEE-Europe to propose the idea of a possible cooperation regarding the European elections project which is being developed within AEGEE. We have presented the objectives of the campaign, and we can count on the support of M.Leglise-Costa and the French government.
As a general conclusion, we can say that it was time for AEGEE-Europe to get back to the habit of consulting directly with the governments about policy issues, in order to remind policy makers that young people are here and they are willing to bring new ideas to discussion. Most of the important European decisions are still made by national governments with national interests, and that’s why it is important to bring our European perspective to the table.
AEGEE-Europe and the Comité Directeur will certainly keep going into this direction, and we hope to have the chance to meet German and Dutch representatives in the next month.
Written by Lucille Rieux, Secretary General of AEGEE-Europe