YPAC 2014

KEY QUESTIONS: How can people’s access to education and training in non-urbanized areas be improved? How can we transform the Alps to make them highly attractive for students? How can we reintroduce more variety in the courses available in the area of the Alps? Is it possible to create so-called “High-tech cities” in which all facilities linked with research, education and training would be gathered in order to stimulate the cities of the Alps? How can we reinforce the links between the different regions of the Alps to promote and share various trainings?

Living in the Alps is also a question of housing, transportation, access to medical care, access to culture and leisure.

KEY QUESTIONS: How can we improve our everyday life in the Alps and value our cities and towns? How can we maintain a viable access to medical care at a local scale? How can the problem of housing in the Alps be handled and solved? How can we develop more economical housing? How can we develop areas that are empty and which could be used to develop housing in the Alps? How can we promote an alternative to cars and roads in the Alps? How can the other means of transportation be developed? How can we make ecological means of transportation more accessible? How can we reinforce the links between cities and non-urbanized and remote areas so as to promote socializing? How can we open up more exchanges between cities and remote mountain areas to develop the access to culture? Can the mountain areas and the cities share their different cultural events?

The Alps need development. Development requires energy… but what will be the cost of it?

KEY QUESTIONS: How can we produce energy without taking the risk of ruining our environment and ourselves? The Alps produce a lot of energy and share it with the cities from the various countries of the Alpine region, but what do they get in return? Is there a way to promote a more local circuit of production and consumption of energy? How can tourism be made more ecological? How can we promote more ecological means of transport?

“Let us decide for our future!” Gamal, former president of the YPAC, once said. However, how is it possible to change things and shape our future without having concrete means to decide and take initiative? It is high time we started thinking about a Permanent Youth Parliament of the Alpine Convention! Promoting active citizenship surely is a good idea, but how do we, young people, have access to and learn about politics?

KEY QUESTIONS: Should schools play a more active part in our access to political knowledge? Is it feasible to promote a common syllabus for teachers to teach politics in our schools of the Alps and beyond? Where could we, the future citizens and decision-makers of the Alps, group together to speak about the current and future issues in our Alpine region? How can we get the power to make known our opinions and recommendations about the decisions made by the politicians in the Alps? How should we elect the young people who represent our interests? On which criteria? How can we make sure that the representatives in the Youth Parliament of the Alpine Convention get a satisfactory training for their future tasks? How could these young people be supported in their investment in the Parliament?