What is structured dialogue?
The structured dialogue is the bilateral communication between young people and decidenți aimed at implementing the priorities of youth policies at local, regional, national and/or European level in each EU Member State. It is also a mechanism whereby the voice of young people is heard in the process of creating and updating local and national policies, European directives, etc.
What does the VI cycle of structured dialogue mean?
Since 2010, young people in the Member States of the European Union have the opportunity to engage in broad consultations on youth policy at local, national or European level. The REȊNNOIT framework for European cooperation in the field of Youth (2010 – 2018) creates the consultative process of structured dialogue in order to stimulate collaboration between authorities and young civil society. Young people provide makers factors with real, concrete facts about the challenges they face and, at the same time, actively participate in the implementation of youth policies at all possible levels. Formally, the structured dialogue is implemented in work cycles of 18 months, which coincides with the takeover of the European Union's half-yearly presidency by a trio of Member States. Each trio of countries proposes a general theme which is taken up and debated in all Member States of the European Union. The results of the consultations are transformed into recommendations of activities and projects in the framework of the European Youth conferences, organised successively by each presidency. Given that, in 2018, the renewed framework for European cooperation in the field of Youth (2010 – 2018) will be concluded, the general priority of the structured dialogue with young people and youth organisations for this working cycle (1 July 2017 – 31 December 2018) focuses on the next framework for European cooperation in the field of youth. The title for the sixth cycle of Sructurat dialogue is "youth in Europe: What's next?". The current trio of Presidencies – Estonia, Bulgaria and Austria – focuses, for the sixth working cycle of structured dialogue, on assessing, revising and renewing structured dialogue, with a view to improving and promoting it.
How does the structured dialogue in Romania work and how is the national Working Group (LNG) established?
At national level, the structured dialogue is implemented by the National Working Group (LNG), a body consisting of representatives of non-governmental organizations and authorities. The national Working Group is established by the Ministry of Youth and Sports, based on an open call for candidacy. At Ȋntâlnirile LNG can be invited as contributors and other social actors interested. For the period November 2017 – December 2018, LNG has the following composition:
- Youth Council of Romania (CTR)
- Timiş County Foundation for Youth (FITT)
- National Alliance of Student Organisations in Romania (ANOSR)
- Federation of Youth Forum of Romania (FTR)
- Romanian Student Union (USR)
- Youth Organization – National Union Bloc (OT-NBS)
- YMCA Romania.
What was it and how was the consultation process carried out?
LNG-DS established in December 2017 that in Romania the process of structured dialogue with young people will be conducted by two methods: consultation workshops with young people and online questionnaire applied to young people, respecting the questions proposed by the Coordinator Committee European steering Committee. The online questionnaire-LNG member organisations have managed to contact a total of 1887 young people who have completed the questionnaire as follows: CTR (135), FITT (73), ANOSR (230), FTR (1062), USR (106), OT-NBS (0), YMCA (11) to which the directions were added County for Sport and Youth (41), Youth Communicators (22), others (186). Consultation workshops with young people – at the level of the National Working Group on Structured Dialogue, the Timiş County Foundation for Youth (FITT) has developed 3 instruments for conducting consultation workshops with young people:
- Workshop with a duration of 2 days (6 hours/day);
- Two workshops lasting 5 hours.
The workshops aimed at addressing the 16 thematically proposed topics at European level, as well as the reporting instruments corresponding to each type of consultation – materials that were developed by the National Working Group – Https://goo.gl/VBHP8G National level were consulted 1090 young people as follows:
- Workshops with a duration of 2 days
- 5 workshops (FITT and ANOSR) attended by 205 young people
- Workshops lasting up to 5 hours
- 17 Workshops (CTR) – 303 young people
- 11 Workshops (FTR) – 277 young people
- 7 Workshops (USR) – 220 young people
- 3 Workshops (YMCA) – 88 young people
As a result of each consultation workshop, a report containing the ideas expressed by young people was developed, using a standardised online mechanism, the views of the young people thus collected were synthesized by the LNG-DS members in this national report. It was found that most of the participants in the consultation workshops and respondents to the online questionnaire were students and students, so in the conclusions of this report, the opinions of these youth categories are mostly found. At the same time, it was noted that young people with disabilities responded in very low numbers to the online questionnaire and did not participate at all in physical consultation workshops, which are the issues that the national Working Group wants to improve on Future. Here can be consulted the entire country report of Romania for the sixth cycle of the structured dialogue process with young people, and here is the report of the results of online consultation of young people.