The Emerging Leaders Conference is a great and truly enriching experience for the young people of our time. Indeed, all of the conferences we have attended place human dignity at the center of current national and European legislative issues. From this postulate, we discussed the different tools available to young people in order to modify the laws that challenge this dignity. In practice, institutions retain the power to change laws that do not fully guarantee basic human needs. So it is for the European Parliament and the Council of Europe which represent the top of the scale. These latter institutions retain a certain legislative weight in the decisions taken within the European Union. In addition, there are also ways for young Europeans to defend this dignity. Thus, the purpose of the ELC represents this ability to defend human dignity from below. In other words, it is young people who will build the future Europe with respect and intrinsic recognition of the human dignity of each person. This involves a process of advocacy with the institutions: amendments, press conferences, debates etc.
Not only does this conference help sharpen one’s linguistic abilities in English, but it is also a way of discussing concrete cases of inequalities between European states (economic, health, etc.). Ultimately, all of these disparities are closely linked to human dignity. What is at stake for the ELC is to demonstrate that dignity is not always a priority issue for European governments and that it is up to US, the European and world youth, to put it back at the center of debates. Thanks to World Youth Alliance Europe and World Youth Alliance France, I was able to begin to realize my reflection and my projects on this subject.
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Published: January 15, 2021
Written by Baptiste Ligeon, an ELC 2020 participant from France
