Youth NGOs criticise Youth Convention's selection procedure (from Euractiv.com)

In short:
Youth NGOs have expressed their disappointment concerning lack of
transparency in the selection procedure of the participants of the Youth
Convention

Background:
The Youth Convention will be modeled as closely as possible on the real
Convention. In total, 210 young people will be allowed to participate:
168 youths will be chosen by the representatives of national Parliaments or governments (6 per country); 32 by the representatives of the European Parliament; 4 by Commission representatives; 6 by the Chairman and Vice-Chairmen.

The Convention members are free to choose their "young representatives" and can decide on how they will select them. Nevertheless, they have been asked to take into account proposals from youth organisations active at national level, and to respect an overall balance (age, sex, occupational status, rural/urban areas, members/non-members of associations).
Participants have to be between 18 and 25 years old. No distinction will be made between full and alternate members within the Youth Convention.

Issues:
The youth organisations mainly criticise the lack of transparency of the
selection procedure. Moreover, it appears difficult for young people to
obtain information on the selection procedure.
While youth organisations had asked the Convention Praesidium to impose a
standard selection procedure for all participants, the decision was finally taken to leave the selection procedure up to the Members of the Convention.
As a result, every component of the Convention will appoint its young
counterparts in a different manner.
In Germany, the selection is taking place via the national youth council. In other countries, however, like the Netherlands, it appears that the youth council's proposals are not being taken into account. The European
Commission has asked the European Youth Forum to make a proposal to fill the four seats it has in the Convention. Contrary to the other components, the Commission representatives may also include youngsters from non-EU countries.

The European Parliament has opted for a procedure that involves several
strands of applicants:
- candidates proposed by the European Youth Forum;
- candidates from other youth organisations;
- candidates who applied through the Convention's website;
and candidates recommended by MEPs.
A selection board (including Mr Hänsch, Mr Mendez de Vigo and Mr Duff) will choose 32 representatives from this list, to be made public soon.

Positions:

Alison Weston, President of the Young European Federalists (JEF)-Europe,
commented that "the Youth Convention must not be merely a public relations exercise, but must be a part of a continuous process by which the voices of young people can be heard." If the Youth Convention is to fulfill the goal of stimulating public debate across Europe, it should make use of existing youth structures to maximise its impact, JEF says. The Young federalists also regret that the European Parliament will only appoint youngsters from EU countries, and not from candidate countries or even other European countries where youngster are interested and involved in the debate (such as Norway or the Balkans).

Henrik Söderman, President of the European Youth Forum, states: "The
European Youth Forum is greatly concerned about the confusion on the
selection process of delegates to the Youth Convention. We have always
advocated for a fair and representative selection procedure of the delegates to the Youth Convention." The Youth Forum stresses that it DOES NOT have the mandate to select any delegates to the Youth Convention. However, it did issue an open call to European NGOs, both members and non-members of the European Youth Forum on 1 May 2002. The full list of proposed candidates received from these NGOs has been sent to the European Parliament, and will be forwarded to the Commission and to the Chairmen of the Convention.

Next Steps:
The Youth Convention will be held on 9-12 July. The young people will report their conclusions to the Convention working session on 12 July. Young people who still want to apply for participation in the Youth Convention should check with their national youth council.

From Dominique Costesec, Euractiv
http://www.euractiv.com/cgi-bin/cgint.exe/808183-138?targ=1&204&OIDN=1503467&-home=search

Read also from Euobserver
http://www.euobserver.com/index.phtml?selected_topic=none&action=view&article_id=6369