The Cyprus Youth Council has participated between Friday the 24th November and Saturday the 25th 2017, an International Youth Conference titled “Finding balance between security and flexibility on the labour market – Young people seeking for sustainable solutions”.

The aforementioned conference which was held in in Sofia Bulgaria, was organized by PODKREPA Youth Network, in cooperation with the National Youth Forum of Bulgaria and with the financial support of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.

The Cyprus Youth Council was represented at the conference in discussion by its President Mr. Marios Philippou, who presented the Youth Unemployment Situation in Cyprus.

The conference opened on Friday with the welcome speeches by both the organizers, as well as key stakeholders in the youth sector in Bulgaria. After the introduction to the conference, the morning session focused on the thematic “European Youth Guarantee – three years later: the implementation in Bulgaria“, as well as on the subject “Labour insecurity and transition towards autonomy of young people: aspects of marginalization and possible models of decision”.

The thematic of the whole afternoon session presentations and panel debate, was dedicated to “Expectations, national context and realities”, from eight representatives coming from different countries and different youth organizations of the E.U.

These really interesting and enlightening youth related presentations had the following titles:

⁃              “Youth in labour market – expectations, context and reality “

⁃              “A-typical work and young people in Poland”

⁃              “Greek debt crisis and unemployment: is “flexicurity”the sollution?“

⁃              “Young people seeking for sustainable solutions – Spain context”.

⁃              “Youth Unemployment Situation in Cyprus” presented by the CYC president

⁃              “Expectations, national context and realities in Greece”

⁃              “Italy in the European context. Analysis, critical points, proposals”

⁃              “Youth Unemployment in Malta”.

On Saturday morning, two working groups were formed in order to prepare a Position paper in respect with the voice of young people, which was later followed by a presentation and a summary of the working group results.

The discussed conference closed with a productive overview and discussion on the whole conference and important conclusions were drawn upon its thematic.