YCDN conference “The Young Generation of the Danube Area as a Key to the European Integration”

 

To apply for the conference, people could send a paper to YCDN which then selected the best ideas. YCDN perceives itself as a network, which brings together different initiatives in the Danube Region. It's a young project, concerning as well its members as its own age. It was only in July last year when students from Germany, Serbia, Slovenia and Romania founded in Novi Sad, Serbia, the “Young Citizens Danube Network“. The idea behind was to continue the exchange on a lively basis and to further strengthen cooperation. Right now, the YCDN team consists of 27 students and young professionals from 13 different countries.

 

The core of YCDN is now at Andrássy University Budapest, a multicultural university where students actually live the EU's Motto „United in Diversity“. Two of the founders, Juliane Gierach and Johann Jakob Wulf, have spread their ideas about a youth network to other Danube countries. Right now, also the European Parliament mentioned the necessity for integration of the young generation in its resolution of the 21st of February about EUSDR: There, under point 38, it is said that the European Parliament „(...) highlights the vital need for cooperation in cultural projects in order to support intercultural dialogue and understanding among the countries of the Danube Region; emphasizes in this regard the active involvement of young people via cultural and educational facilities in order to create multinational networks (…).” Therefore, also YCDN plans further projects like a students' network among the Danube countries. The European Union has designed the EUSDR in order lift the macroregion along the Danube up to a higher level. The aim is similar to that of the “Baltic Sea Strategy“: the 14 Danube countries should make a use of their regional common ground and, through an intensified exchange and closer cooperation, adress challenges in common. Therefore, topics like environmental protection, culture and tourism play an important role. This strategy is understood as a “bottom up process“, which includes a strong participation of the civil society. Individual ideas may be submitted to the EU-commission. In this context, Juliane Gierach and Johann-Jakob Wulf also enuciated the idea of a university network in the Danube Region.

 

Please find the programme here.

 

For further information, please check our homepage at http://www.youngdanubians.eu/ or contact Gabriella Bassu via bassu@ycdn.eu.