YCDN conference "The Young Generation of the Danube Area as a Key to the European Integration"

YCDN inivites to the conference “The Young Generation of the Danube Area as a Key to the European Integration” in Budapest, 17th -19th of June 2011. The conference will be held at Andrássy University Budapest. Basically, the network wants to strengthen European Integration within the young generation.

It is the aim of this special conference to encourage a dialogue among young people from all the countries which are part of the „European Union Strategy for the Danube Region“ (EUSDR). At the conference, four workshops about the issues „National identity, myths and feeling“, „Protecting the environment in the Danube region“, „Building prosperity in the Danube region“, and „Strengthening the Danube region“ will be the basis for a lively exchange of opinions. The expected number of active participants is about 50 persons from 13 different countries of the Danube Region, in addition to several guestspeakers.

To apply for the conference, people could send a paper to YCDN which then selected the best ideas. YCDN perceives itself as a network, which brings together different initiatives in the Danube Region. It's a young project, concerning as well its members as its own age. It was only in July last year when students from Germany, Serbia, Slovenia and Romania founded in Novi Sad, Serbia, the “Young Citizens Danube Network“. The idea behind was to continue the exchange on a lively basis and to further strengthen cooperation. Right now, the YCDN team consists of 27 students and young professionals from 13 different countries.

The core of YCDN is now at Andrássy University Budapest, a multicultural university where students actually live the EU's Motto „United in Diversity“. Two of the founders, Juliane Gierach and Johann Jakob Wulf, have spread their ideas about a youth network to other Danube countries. Right now, also the European Parliament mentioned the necessity for integration of the young generation in its resolution of the 21st of February about EUSDR: There, under point 38, it is said that the European Parliament „(...) highlights the vital need for cooperation in cultural projects in order to support intercultural dialogue and understanding among the countries of the Danube Region; emphasizes in this regard the active involvement of young people via cultural and educational facilities in order to create multinational networks (…).” Therefore, also YCDN plans further projects like a students' network among the Danube countries. The European Union has designed the EUSDR in order lift the macroregion along the Danube up to a higher level. The aim is similar to that of the “Baltic Sea Strategy“: the 14 Danube countries should make a use of their regional common ground and, through an intensified exchange and closer cooperation, adress challenges in common. Therefore, topics like environmental protection, culture and tourism play an important role. This strategy is understood as a “bottom up process“, which includes a strong participation of the civil society. Individual ideas may be submitted to the EU-commission. In this context, Juliane Gierach and Johann-Jakob Wulf also enuciated the idea of a university network in the Danube Region.

For further information, please check our homepage at http://www.youngdanubians.eu/ or contact Gabriella Bassu via bassu@ycdn.eu.

Andrássy University Budapest (AUB) was founded in 2001 by Hungary, Germany, Austria, Bavaria, and Baden-Württemberg. The AUB is the only fully German speaking University outside the German speaking countries. Its degree programmes are accredited in Germany (ACQUIN) as well as in Hungary (MAB). The excellent 1:7 relation of professors and students allows targeted and efficient studies in small groups. Students from more than 20 nations provide for an intercultural exchange. Besides the encouragement of German as an academic language the AUB especially supports the consolidation of the cooperation of the states around the Danube, the education of Europe experts as well as multidisciplinary and multiculturalism in teaching and research.

Andrássy Gyula Germanspeaking University Budapest
Pollack Mihály tér 3
1o88 Budapest
Hungary

Contact person:

Peter Schützhold
Phone: + 36 1 266 3101 260
E-Mail: peter.schuetzhold@andrassyuni.hu

This release was published on openPR.