Under the sponsorship of British Council Croatia, the Academy for Political Development has organised a panel discussion on the participation of youth in politics. The guest lecturer was Mr Alex Sergent, Director of “Catch 21”, a charitable production company which produces videos and other new media content to help engage young people with politics and their communities in Great Britain.

The panel gathered Mr. Arsen Bauk, Minister of Public Administration, Ms Marija Lugarić, Deputy Minister of Science, Education and Sports, Mr Duje Prkut from NGO GONG and Ms Emina Bužinkić, former president of the Croatian Youth Network.

During the discussion, which was delivered before VERN’s students, alumni of the Academy for Political Development and the media, it was emphasised that political passivity of youth is not Croatia’s curiosity and that the trend could be changed by using related programs, which already exist but should be restructured. However, by the estimations which were mentioned by Ms Emina Bužinkić, there are less than 1% of young parliamentarians in the Croatian Parliament. Furthermore, youth go to the polls up to 13 % less than the rest of the population. It has also been highlighted that Croatian young population shouldn’t be automatically put among progressive ones, as well as that recent studies show that, along with homophobia, a large number of young people in Croatia have nationalistic tendencies.

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