HELSINKI, 30 July 2025 – The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly participated in the OSCE Chairpersonship Youth Forum “From Helsinki to the next 50 years”, held in Helsinki on 29–30 July, contributing to joint efforts to advance the Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) agenda across the OSCE region. Organized by the 2025 Finnish OSCE Chairpersonship, the Forum brought together youth leaders, representatives of international organizations, and OSCE structures to share good practices, explore challenges, and discuss the way forward for meaningful youth engagement in peace and security.
Lucija Tacer speaking at the OSCE Chairpersonship Youth Forum, Helsinki, 29 July 2025The OSCE PA was represented at the Forum by Lucija Tacer (Slovenia), Chair of the OSCE PA Network of Young Parliamentarians, and Aleksander Stokkebo (Norway), Member of the Network.
Lucija Tacer served as a panelist in the Forum’s focus session “Taking stock of the OSCE’s and other international actors’ work and good practices on Youth, Peace and Security”. Drawing on the work of the OSCE PA, she underlined the importance of institutionalized youth participation in policymaking and called for increased efforts to ensure meaningful youth participations.
“We need to move beyond symbolic participation and invest in co-creation models where young people are empowered to shape peace and security policy,” Tacer said. “Through the OSCE PA Network of Young Parliamentarians and the Youth Perspectives initiative, we are demonstrating how young leaders can influence policy and bring fresh thinking to multilateral co-operation as well as providing examples of good practices for youth inclusion, which can be utilized at national and local levels.”
Lucija Tacer and Aleksander Stokkebo at the OSCE Chairpersonship Youth Forum, Helsinki, 29 July 2025On the second day of the Forum, Aleksander Stokkebo hosted an OSCE PA stand at the Youth Forum Marketplace. The stand highlighted the OSCE PA’s flagship Youth Perspectives initiative – a unique platform enabling young people across the OSCE region to contribute directly to the work of the Assembly.
“Youth Perspectives is about turning dialogue into impact,” Stokkebo said. “Through national workshops and consultations, young people share their views on key security challenges. These are not just collected—they’re transformed into official resolutions debated and adopted by the OSCE PA. It’s intergenerational dialogue in action.”
Since its launch in 2024, the Youth Perspectives initiative has led to the adoption of two OSCE PA resolutions: Youth Perspectives on the Future of International Relations, Multilateralism, and Sustainable Development (Bucharest, 2024), and Youth Perspectives on Facilitating Brain Circulation and Preventing Brain Drain in the OSCE Area (Porto, 2025).
The outcomes of the Youth Forum will contribute to a region-wide OSCE YPS Roadmap, launched by the Finnish Chairpersonship to mark the tenth anniversary of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2250.
For more information on the OSCE PA’s youth engagement work, click here.
