The International Sessions are the flagship events of the EYP. The very first International Session of the European Youth Parliament was held in Fontainebleau, France in 1988. Since then, more than 80 International Sessions have been held all over Europe. Currently, the EYP organises three International Sessions every year. Each of them brings together about 300 young people from around 40 European countries for 9 days each.
The majority of the participants attend the events in the role of delegates. Delegates are selected by their National Committees through a competitive selection process on the national level – usually at a National Selection Conference.
Next to being delegates, young participants can also take on the role of an official, meaning that they act as journalists, editorial assistants, editors, chairpersons, the Vice-President or the President of the session. Officials for International Sessions are selected by a selection panel composed of representatives from the hosting National Committee, the Governing Body of the European Youth Parliament, and previous active EYP members who have held the positions at previous sessions.
To host an International Session, every National Committee can submit an application when a call to host a session is open. A list of all the countries that have been selected to host previous and upcoming International Sessions can be found here.
Recent Sessions
89th International Session in Yerevan, Armenia
Session website |Facebook page | Resolution Booklet
The first International Session of 2019 was organized by EYP Armenia and took place between 9-17 March in Yerevan. It was the biggest international youth event in the history of Armenia, gathering almost 300 young people to discuss topics under the theme ‘East meets West’, such as global development and upcoming challenges of the EU, as well as Eastern Partnership countries.
The session applied several innovations among which the online training series aimed to help participants to better understand European politics and EYP.
88th International Session in Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Session website |Facebook page | Resolution Booklet
The second International Session of 2018 took place in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, between 13-21 October 2018. The city of Rotterdam, home to the second biggest port in the world, brought together over 270 young people under the theme ‘Discovering Global Europe’. Topics discussed during the session focused on globalization, trade and economy, as well as sustainability, climate change, the energy transition, and social themes such as immigration and inequality. Participants had the opportunity to dive in their topics closely with experts during the committee group work. Worth mentioning that the session’s theme fitted perfectly with the hosting city, as it’s renowned for its role as international conduit for goods, services and people both in and out of Europe.
87th International Session in Vilnius, Lithuania
Facebook page | Resolution Booklet
The first International Session in 2018 took place in Vilnius, Lithuania between 12-22 July. The International Session in Vilnius gathered over 260 participants under the theme of “Learning from the Past, Shaping the Future” with the aim of combining historical heritage and modern improvements. Among the discussed topics during the session were equal access to education, language diversity in Europe, reduction of economic inequalities, civil rights and statelessness in the EU. The cooperation with the UN Refugee Agency made possible to include in the event young refugees and stateless persons, as well as inviting experts in order to encourage participants to engage with the topic in an in-depth, innovative manner.
86th International Session in Tbilisi, Georgia
Session website |Facebook page | Resolution Booklet
The 86th International Session of the European Youth Parliament took place under the theme “Linking Peace, Stability and Advancement: Preventing International Conflicts”. Over 300 participants came together in Tbilisi to talk about 15 various issues that focus on sustainable peace and conflict prevention and discussed how the European Union can strengthen its position as a stabilising force and peace-builder both within and beyond the borders of Europe.
This session also continued the newly established partnership with the UNHCR, this time through the work of the committee on Civil Liberties that discussed the questions on statelessness.
85th International Session in Brno, Czech Republic
Session website |Facebook page | Resolution Booklet
The 85th International Session of EYP took place from 19 to 30 July 2017 in Brno, which is, with its 400,000 inhabitants, the second largest city in the Czech Republic. Brno is primarily known as the centre of higher education – with 4 public universities and 13 institutions of higher education in total, it gives an opportunity to study and explore the beauty of this city to nearly 90,000 students. The event motto – ‘Seeking the heart of Europe’ – reflected the goal of organisers to encourage active citizenship in everyday life, to strengthen common European goals and values, and to introduce participants Central European culture. A great focus was also given to reaching consensus through mutual understanding, fuelling enthusiasm for volunteering, and promoting the city of Brno, South Moravia Region, and the whole Czech Republic.
84th International Session in Trondheim&Røros, Norway
Session website | Facebook page | Resolution Booklet
Trondheim&Røros 2017 invites 300 young Europeans to experience the past through the historic Røros and Trondheim to shape the future together. The international event gathering young people between 16-26 from 38 countries will focus on the quintessential experience of EYP and discuss new topics such as artificial intelligence, the development of sustainable technological devices and possible solutions of problems created by fossil fuels. Like the previous International Session they will be allowing the delegates to visit other committees to take influence, criticise and improve the other committees’ resolutions as well.
TRØ17 aims to be for everyone, therefore they included organisations like Transgender Europe into their preparation of their volunteer facilitators and general leadership. Therefore they try to sensitise and spread knowledge on how to involve all kinds of people and ensure a pleasant experience for all participants of the session.
83rd International Session in Laax, Switzerland
The motto of this International Session was “Young and Innovative Ideas for a Sustainable Future”, which was apparent in various actions taken. The idea was to create a session as sustainable as possible, which concluded in the participants only using public transport, a vegan or vegetarian diet, wearing green fashion, etc.
The participants discussed, cooperated and created a resolution up in the swiss mountains concluded by a marvellous gala to celebrate the succesful closing, bu also to celebrate the anniversary of the National Committee hosting the Session: EYP Switzerland.
82nd International Session in Rennes, France
This International Session of the European Youth Parliament was hosted by the European Youth Parliament France in Rennes, the capital of Brittany, gathering 300 young participants from 36 European countries. A special enrichment of this session, which took place from 14-23 July 2016, was that for the first time an International Session had three working languages: English, French and German.
The vivid multilingual debates dealt with various topics, such as the EU-Turkey Joint Action Plan, social entrepreneurship, and the fair distribution of natural resources.
81st International Session Dublin-Belfast, United Kingdom
The 81st International Session of the European Youth Parliament took place in Dublin and Belfast from 5-13 March 2016, gathering more than 300 young people from 34 European countries. For ten days, Belfast and Dublin were a hotspot for exciting debates about European issues that related to the session theme, ‘Crossing Borders, Transcending Conflict’.
The young delegates exchanged ideas and visions of Europe‘s future and made friends across borders. They discussed hot topics of European politics and drafted resolutions, which were then debated according to the rules of the European Parliament.
80th International Session in Leipzig, Germany
The 80th International Session of the European Youth Parliament gathered 315 Europeans from 32 European countries in the city of Leipzig, Germany, from 6-15 November, 2015. Throughout the event the participants went through different stages of the conference, starting from Teambuilding, followed by Committee Work and ended with defending and debating other resolutions at the General Assembly.
The topics discussed all dealt with the general theme of the session ‘From tearing down walls to setting new stones’. The evenings of the event were filled with extensive cultural programme, where participants had the change to showcase their own cultural traditions as well as get to know others.
