“The Council of Europe is an international actor, yet it counts for local actors”: Sophie Kwasny on the new Charter on Youth Participation, rural youth, and what local authorities can borrow from Strasbourg

Sophie Kwasny, Head of Education, Training and Cooperation in the Youth Department of the Council of Europe, on the Charter on Youth Participation, the link with the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, rural youth, digital rights, and why co-management in Strasbourg should be an inspiration for local authorities across Europe.

by Bilal Ata Aktas

I first met Sophie Kwasny in September 2025 in Mollina in Spain, on the sidelines of the University for Youth and Development, the annual gathering organised by the CoE’s North-South Centre which for this Edition brought together more than 240 young people from 78 nationalities around the theme of digital safety.

Kwasny had been in her new role for only a few weeks. A lawyer by training, she spent years leading the CoE’s work on data protection before moving to its Youth Department, where she now oversees education, training and international cooperation. For a network like DYPALL, built around the cooperation between local authorities and youth organisations, the timing of our conversation was particularly relevant: the CoE was pushing through the revision of the Carta europeană privind participarea tinerilor la viața locală și regională, preparing the 10th Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth in Malta, and expanding its youth agenda. 

I crossed paths with Sophie again a few months later in Strasbourg, at the study session Local Youth Councils as Advocates for Democracy, held at the European Youth Centre from 23 to 29 November 2025. The session, organised by DYPALL Network in cooperation with the Youth Department of the CoE, brought together 25 young people from 21 countries to strengthen the advocacy capacity of Local Youth Councils and to test the tools developed through DYPALL’s work, including the Quality Charter on participatory and inclusive LYCs and its User Guide. I had the chance to serve as co-course director and Sophie joined us briefly for a session with the participants. 

The months between these two encounters have sharpened the stakes of what we discussed in September: polarisation among young people, the rise of anti-rights movements, and the persistent distance between European institutions and the everyday realities of youth across the Organisation’s 46 member states. The questions raised sit squarely in DYPALL’s field of work, which is why I am publishing this conversation now. 

B: You just started your new role, a couple of weeks in and already right in the middle of everything. How does it feel?

S: I’m overwhelmed, in a positive way, by the quality of the meetings and the dynamic of the work. It’s fascinating, and I’m very excited.

B: You’re Head of Education, Training and Cooperation in the Youth Department of the CoE. What does that actually mean, day to day?

S: Our team is based in Strasbourg and Budapest, and some of our field offices, and much of our activity takes place in the two European Youth Centres, which are dedicated spaces for youth participation and exchange. What we deliver is non-formal education through study sessions, training courses, publications, etc. The objective is to empower youth delegates and young people more broadly, to support their democratic participation and help them fully exercise their rights.

B: Youth participation has become one of the “fanciest” topics in Europe right now. What barriers does it still face?

S: It depends on which level you’re looking at. There’s real momentum now, but it’s not new. The CoE has been working on this for decades. Look at our co-management system in Strasbourg.

B: Tell me more about that please. It’s one of the rare examples that seems to really work.

S: Yes, it goes far beyond tokenism. Youth delegates are fully empowered and directly involved in decision-making. I come from several years of experience in the CoE’s intergovernmental work, and I had never seen meetings where a youth delegate actually chairs the session. It’s a very advanced stage of shared management. It should be the model to follow at every level, and it offers inspiration also for local authorities.

B: And yet, for some NGOs and some young people, the CoE can feel detached from local realities. Is that true?

S: The CoE is not meant to be a local actor. We’re an international organisation. You can’t expect us to be present at the local level across all 46 member States. Working internationally can make you appear abstract, but through our sessions at the European Youth Centres we have very direct exchanges with young people, and through the NGOs that represent them we reach a very large number.

B: You’re working on a revised Charter on Youth Participation, one of the most codified tools in this field. What does the revision change?

S: We try to practise what we preach. Youth participation is necessary for any decision-making process, so when we develop a text like the Charter, involving young people in drafting is automatic.

We’re trying to go further. The 2023 Reykjavik Summit placed a strong emphasis on democracy, and one dimension of that is bringing in youth perspectives, plural, because there is no single youth viewpoint. We’ve always embedded those perspectives in instruments that explicitly concern youth, but we’re now pushing internally, working with colleagues across Strasbourg on policy areas that don’t traditionally think, “We need to involve youth here.”

B: Once the Charter is adopted, it isn’t compulsory. Will there be a monitoring process?

S: That’s a work in progress. We’re preparing for the 10th Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth in Malta, and it’s one of the key agenda items. [Editor’s note: The conference titled “Young People for Democracy: Youth Perspectives in Action” was held in Valletta on 8 and 9 October 2025 under the Maltese Presidency. Ministers from 45 countries adopted a Final Declaration and a Resolution.]

B: For local authorities, this Charter could be a genuinely useful tool.

S: Yes, and the CoE has many bodies. For local authorities, the relevant institution is the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities. The question is how we link our youth work with the Congress, and that’s precisely what we’ve been doing with the Charter. The tools exist. We need to make the most of the mechanisms already in place.

B: Another recurring criticism: training programmes often reach the same group of already active young people. What about rural youth for example?

S: Rural youth and more marginalised groups are a core concern for us. The reality of someone living in a capital city is entirely different from that of someone in a rural area. We have worked on  a recommendation specifically on this, spelling out for our member states and all youth actors what needs to be in place so that the voices of rural young people are properly integrated.

There’s a digital dimension too. Study sessions require physical presence, but our publications and resources are accessible online. If you’re in a small village somewhere, you can still reach them and that’s a big step.

B: Your own background is in data protection. Digital safety and digital literacy are among the biggest concerns for young people today. How will you approach this?

S: Thankfully the Youth Department didn’t wait for me to realise digital issues needed attention. Colleagues have been working on this for years, combating hate speech online and producing training material on different aspects of the digital environment. I do have a particular sensitivity to these topics, and I’ll be attentive to how we continue supporting digital literacy. Another crucial question is how to ensure young people’s rights to privacy and data protection are respected, and that they know how to exercise them.

B: What would count as a success story for you five years from now?

S: Overcoming some of the growing challenges I see. There’s a lot of polarisation and growing discrimination. The CoE was pioneering with its No Hate campaign, and that work is more important than ever. The question is how to ensure that diversity is taken into account while strengthening everyone’s capacity to contribute meaningfully. Participation in democratic processes remains key.

B: Any concrete priorities you want to make more visible?

S: Human rights education, with greater urgency given the rise of anti-rights movements. And the CoE’s priority of a New Democratic Pact for Europe, which has a strong youth dimension. Not groundbreaking priorities, because they’re rooted in long-standing work, but essential.

B: You said earlier that youth isn’t a single block. And we see a growing trend of right-wing extremism and anti-democratic movements among young people. How do you channel that anger into something constructive?

S: We’re already doing it. When we organise study sessions, participants are selected by our partner organisations, which are civil society actors, and those organisations do reach out to young people who hold more challenging or controversial views. It’s important to have them in the room. You can’t deny someone the right to participate because they hold different opinions.

B: I think it’s okay to be angry, as long as we can channel it into something constructive. But institutions often treat young people as if they should only speak about “youth issues,” which is deeply problematic. Stepping outside your official role, do you see this tendency in daily life? That we don’t fully trust young people or only trust them within a very controlled bubble?

S: That’s absolutely not my perception. A few weeks ago we hosted the President of the European Youth Forum at the Committee of Ministers, and despite all the challenges young people are facing, he delivered very positive messages. I don’t see youth representatives being confined to a narrow role in our work.

B: I hope the gap between European institutions and youth narrows as soon as possible. No doubt that some of the problems are structural of course.

S: And some of it is perception, linked to the roles we each play. You can’t expect us, as an international institution, to be as present on the ground as local actors. But we do work closely with grassroots organisations and it’s up to us to improve the visibility of what we do. There are initiatives that directly affect young people, like the Youth Mobility Card, and yet almost no one knows the CoE is behind them. We need to make those things better known.

B: So you are already in contact with grassroots organisations?

S: Yes, absolutely. But it’s always about bubbles. Those organisations have direct impact within their own communities; beyond that, it gets harder. We’re always navigating between bubbles.