by Anna Siitam
Sergej Koperdak, Head of the Unit for Youth Policy at the European Commission visited the EU Youth Event and discussed with a group of participants how policies can improve to better fit the needs of young people with fewer opportunities.
“EU is a large machine so constant improvements are necessary” he admitted. Since it has taken 50 years to get this far and youth policy is a relatively small and new area he asked the young participants to have patience with the process. He was surprised with some of the participants’ pessimistic attitude towards EU policy system and it was claimed that only experts decides for young people. One way of preventing this attitude could be by not only asking young people but also inviting them to be present during the actual decision-making process the participants agreed. Sergej Koperdak was listening and appreciative towards the comments made from the participants and told hem that he appreciated the direct contact and that he would definitely take the opinions and the recommendations seriously.
Sergej Koperdak has own non-formal education and talked affectionately about his extra curricular activities and events during his university time which was very important to him and which helped him a lot in his career. He understood the questions and argumentations towards recognition of non-formal education and underlined how important non-formal education is both for your self-development and for your future work place. In his work he advises different national authorities on policy issues but he stressed the role of the EU and the Commission; “We can only inspire youth policies it is up to the member states to implement them”. EU can work towards a common understanding but it is hard since different states do in fact work with different policies. Hopefully he can do a better job with the direct recommendations from the event.
