European Youth Capital 2026 ⎸ we know the 5 finalist cities
Excited about the future? 🔮 While the year for the European Youth Capital 2023 Lublin is in full swing, we are looking to the future to see who are the European Youth Capital 2026 finalists. Let's find out 👀
Would you like to know more? Get in touch!
The competition is heating up. After receiving exciting applications from 13 European cities, the European Youth Capital independent jury has now shortlisted our final five finalists.
A BIG congratulations️ 🎉 to (in alphabetical order):
- Izmir / Türkiye
- Málaga / Spain
- Sarajevo / Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Tromsø / Norway
- Vila do Conde / Portugal
All finalist cities have shown a great commitment to invest in young people, and to bring more opportunities for their active involvement in everyday city life.
Well done.
The European Youth Capital is a unique opportunity for young people living in cities to play an active role in shaping their community and to have a stronger say in decisions that affect them. Even in the early stages of the application process, cities are encouraged to demonstrate how they are joining forces with young people to make sure that the upcoming title’s year will reflect their ideas, interests and opinions.
While not shortlisted this time, we would like to applaud the impressive candidacies of 👏:
- Ankara (Türkiye)
- Antalya (Türkiye)
- Chisinau (Moldova)
- Gratwein-Straßengel (Austria)
- Konya (Türkiye)
- Leeds (United Kingdom)
- Lund (Sweden)
- Tuzla (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
We hope that each of these cities will continue to strive for more effective youth participation in their community 🤞 As a part of the European Youth Capital application process, all cities will receive feedback on their application by an independent jury. We would like to encourage all cities to re-apply for the title in the future - we are looking forward to continuing to work with you all.
What's next?
Are you ready for the next round of the competition?
Now the shortlisted cities have time to submit a more detailed application outlining an extensive programme of youth-related cultural, social and political events and activities for the whole year until 5 June 2023.
The finalists will then receive further recommendations on their detailed applications from the independent jury and a focus group. Finally, they will submit their final and updated applications on 25 September 2023.
After that, the finalist cities will have the possibility to convince the European Youth Capital 2026 selection jury why is it them who should be awarded the title at the jury meeting, happening prior to the official Award Ceremony in November 2023 ️🎊
Finally, we'd like to express our thanks to the independent European Youth Capital 2026 jury for dedicating their time and effort to thoroughly and fairly assess all the applications ️🏆
Our jury is composed of representatives of the following institutions and organisations (in alphabetical order):
Advisory Council of Youth of the Council of Europe, Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe, Council of European Municipalities & Regions, EURACTIV, Eurodesk, Europe Goes Local, European Association for Local Democracy - ALDA, European Committee of the Regions, European Economic & Social Committee, European Parliament, European Union-Council of Europe Youth Partnership, European Volunteer Centre, European Youth Forum, Open Society Initiative for Europe, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, Schwarzkopf Foundation Young Europe and Social Platform
Thank you!
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Join the European Youth Capital 2028 Focus Group
Do you have experience in fostering young people's participation in cities? Have you implemented European youth policies at a local level, or through the European Youth Capital title?