… our second international youth conference, presented a preliminary report. The report was released by a ten-minute slideshow displayed by the conference participants in two grand venues – the Gothenburg Democracy Day 2020 Futures of Democracies: The Power of Citizens. Facts, Stories, Visions, and the International IDEA 25th Anniversary virtual conference Democracy Now and Next, with prominent participants from IDEA’s 33 member states representing all world continents.

Today four months later I am happy and very proud presenting to you the IYC2020 final report. This time the venue for the report release is the public lunch webinar Back to the Future: empowering the next generation of European leaders. We organize the webinar jointly with the Brussels based Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), and it newest initiative the CEPS Young Thinkers, which at today’s event launches the call for participation in the 2021 edition of Ideas Lab that runs on 31 May–4 June.

Our report will be presented by IYTT Youth Fellows with backgrounds in four countries: Mirjam Vallström (Sweden), Helena Back (Germany), Yassine Ben Yacoub (France), and Joshua Bloodworth (UK).

Today’s event will be opened by a brief keynote delivered by Heather Grabbe, Director, Open Society European Policy Institute, and concluded by a panel with the former EU Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström, who is a co-founder of the IYTT, and the two MEP’s German Daniel Freund, and Hungarian Katalin Cseh.

What could better represent this happy occasion, which lends great hope for the future, if not the words from the 22 authors found in the report’s Introduction:

COVID-19 worked for us as a call to action. It revealed that our democracy is a tired body, fatigued with all the challenges it has overcome, but that it can be revitalized by an injection of fresh ideas: when we preserve the people’s right to fair information; when we act so that people can feel they have a say; when we fight for a governance that listens to the voice of those who need it the most; this is when we stand up and get back on the road of justice. One of the leading proposals outlined in this report is the Global Charter of Truth which may be the key to the greatest positive change.

If you miss today’s event it is live streamed, and will be available for viewing at YouTube.