Education, culture and youth side event in focus of EaP Forum Working group 4 meeting in Brussels

32 representatives of the Working Group 4 of the EaP Civil Society Forum met on the 28th of February in Brussels to discuss and plan the group activities for 2014. The working group 4 focuses on the issues of contacts between people reflecting the main issues on the agenda of EaP Thematic Platform 4, and include activities, such as education, youth, culture and contacts between seniors.

During the meeting Ms. Marta Touykova, the Platform 4 Coordinator from the European Commission gave a detailed presentation about the projects of Erasmus+, informing participants on strengthening participation in higher education programmes - Tempus & Erasmus Mundus, increased budget and regional information campaign of the programme overall. The participants also learnt that at the moment the equivalent of EaP Youth window is missing in the current project.

Participants of the youth subgroup discussed a future youth side event of Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum in Georgia. Following the experience of the EaP Forum in Moldova, the event brings up to 50 participants from EaP countries and the programme addresses issues tackling the improvement of the situation of the young people in the region. Among them: harmonisation of youth law of EaP countries with EU and identification of regional priorities based on the research conducted in six EaP countries.

Other subgroups focused on issues such as advocacy and inclusion of NGOs in the process of reforms, intercultural education, and recognition of non-formal education, innovative approaches, and women issues in the region. Cooperation of WG4 groups with external bodies and coordination between subgroups in the existing framework of the EaP Forum were also brought up to the discussion table.

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