The European Youth Capital is a title awarded by the European Youth Forum designed to empower young people, boost youth participation and strengthen European identity.

Each year, a new European city is given the chance to showcase its innovative ideas, projects and activities that aim to raise up young voices and bring a new youth perspective to all aspects of city life.

This time six cities decided to apply for the European Youth Capital title. They are now going through the first round of the selection process.

The applicant cities are (in alphabetical order) :

• Baia Mare (Romania)
• Izmir (Turkey)
• Kazan (Russia)
• Lublin(Poland)
• Poznan (Poland)
• Lviv (Ukraine)

The European Youth Forum is delighted to see these cities taking steps to make their cities more youth friendly. We look forward to the next stage of the selection process and wish every applicant the best of luck.

To award the title, the European Youth Forum convenes an independent Jury composed of institutional and civil society experts, youth representatives, local and regional authorities, people from the media and people from the private sector.

The Jury members assess the applications and shortlist up to five cities for the second round of the competition. The shortlisted cities will be announced on 09 March 2020.

In the second round of the competition, the shortlisted cities will have to submit a more detailed application outlining an extensive programme of youth-related cultural, social and political events and activities.

They will also receive recommendations from the independent Jury and a Focus Group and will submit their final, updated applications in September 2020.

Read the full article here.