Youth & Adult Programmes

The Meetings are are part of two year programmes called Citizens for Europe Programmes. These are arranged with the European Commission. We collectively seek to understand what it means to be European from the point of view of a small community. We do his through formal discussions and programmes, for example on society; economy; environment. The chosen topic or theme runs for two years, in which it is operated as a series of sub-themes at each meeting. It is always current and relevant to important issues trending at that time across Europe.

At the conclusion of each two year programme period, a report is detailing results and recommendations is complied and submitted to the European Commission. In this way, all member municipalities across each EU country, and at small town level, represent the over 500 million citizens of the European Union on topics and issues relevant to all EU citizens. While rules and regulations can be implemented by the European Union that affects all of it’s citizens, the results of the two year programmes can provide a real-time and real-life measure of these impacts at local community level, and in this way improve the life styles for all EU citizens.

There are always two Charter Programmes – Youth (18 – 30 years) and Adults. As future leaders it is fundamental our Youth are given a strong voice. The Charter of European Rural Communities supports the Youth and Youth Programmes in every way. The Charter Youth have a Youth Co-ordination Team or YCT, composed of youth members from across Europe. They furthermore have a voice on the Charter Presidium.