FYEG (Federation of Young European Greens)

www.fyeg.org office@fyeg.org

rue Wiertz 31 B-1050 Brussels ph. : 32-2 284 24 40 mobile: 32 486 96 17 18 fax : 32-2 626 07 29

The Federation of Young European Greens (FYEG) was founded in 1988 in Belgium. It was founded with the aim of bringing together young environmental groups from all over Europe to encourage both mutual understanding and mutual action to promote a greener Europe. Although funding began in 1988 it was not until 1996 that FYEG was officially recognized by the Belgian state as a formally constituted organisation. Changes in law meant that new statutes had to be resubmitted in 2004.

Modestly beginning with a few Member Organisations (MOs) from both Eastern and Western Europe it has since grown quite substantially. It now has nearly 30 MOs from all the different regions of Europe. MOs vary in size, having from 70 to thousands of members. Organisations are either the youth wings of Green Parties or environmental non governmental youth organisations (youth NGOs). The Green Group in the European Parliament has been kind enough to give us a permanent office in the European Parliament buildings in Brussels. This is where the FYEG secretariat is located.

FYEG hosts a formal meeting once a year as its General Assembly, where MOs send delegates to decide on policy and strategy and elect an Executive Committee (EC). The EC board of 9 people is elected to serve for a year and EC members can serve 2 terms consecutively. The Executive Committee leads and coordinates activities of the Federation. There is no leadership hierarchy and we insist on having a flat structured and gender balanced committee. Though, EC members do have individual areas of responsibility. They have been assisted by a fulltime paid office co-ordinator since 1999. Together they function in smaller teams to increase efficiency, but important decisions are made by the whole EC.

Our opinions and statements are based on our political platform, which is discussed and updated each year during our General Assembly. By far most our members are under 30 years of age and all our events are planned and run by young unpaid activists from across Europe.

We run a variety of activities over the span of a year with the objective of facilitating co-operation and mutual working between Member Organisations - without FYEG our MOs would be like ships in the night, passing by chance and rarely co-operating except for the odd bi-lateral exchange. Thus, we hold at least four major events annually which vary between meetings, seminars, study sessions, summer camps, political debates or training sessions. These are held in different parts of Europe where our members can meet, exchange views, broaden their horizons and find common cause with other Europeans, creating a real European sense of identity. FYEG also organises International Campaigns such as; Common Future, for the European Union Elections; Destination Europe, on Migration and the Paris Picnique.

Various methods are used in order to achieve our objectives. One of the most important is the spread of information. Ecosprinter is our newsletter which publicises our point of view and informs our activists of past and upcoming events. We also do Campaign Reports in the form of an Ecoplasma. Ecoplasma looks at a topic in-depth, normally one recently covered in a seminar or to give an end to a particular campaign. FYEG also have active email lists for different issues and different projects over the year. We regularly attend seminars and meetings organised by the European Commission, the Council of Europe, the European Youth Forum (of which we are full members), EGP (of which we are observers) and other partner organisations.

This set-up realises FYEG's vision of empowering young people to play a part in European civil society rather than passively consuming events organised for them by adults. We want to develop a future Europe for young people and by young people with a number of opportunities to express themselves, based on environmental and social justice.

During the last few years, we focused strongly on expanding our network toward Central and Eastern Europe. This is reflected in the recent full membership of organisations from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Ukraine. A daughter organisation called Co-operation and Development Network Eastern Europe (CDN) was set up.

In the future we aim to continue developing our network in the CEE region, in light of the enlargement and further European integration processes, and also focus on other networks and regions such as Euro-Med. We will also seek closer co-operation with other green organisations outside Europe and also other international organisations.

FYEG is a functioning and active organisation. FYEG is growing and becoming more dynamic, more effective. We are reaching out to new MOs and our MOs are becoming better organized, with our support. We will carry on supporting Europe and its Green future. Wir begrünen die Welt!