German-Baltic Conference Tartu 2023

Building on the success of the #EuropeShallHearYou campaign since 2019, the GBC brings together young people from all over Europe to meet in one of the major Baltic cities, giving them a platform to make their voices heard. After Riga (2019), Vilnius (2020), Tallinn (2021) and Riga (2022), we are meeting in Tartu this year, home to Estonia’s oldest university and the European Capital of Culture 2024.

This year’s participants of the conference have the opportunity to join working groups that focus on policy development and civic engagement. Four clusters allow young Europeans to involve themselves as Youth Ambassadors in developing sustainable policy approaches in the realms of the environment, economy, society, and values – drafting their own policy and position papers that subsequently will be disseminated to political actors and decision-makers.

In 2023, the theme of the cluster work is "Freedom as a shared European value", and each cluster will focus on a specific subtopic within it.

Cluster Topics:

A. Environmental Freedom

B. Freedom of Speech

C. Freedom of Movement

D. Freedom of Creative Expression

While the clusters’ and GBYEN’s work evolve separately during the conference, the keynote speeches are open to all participants and intend to inspire both the clusters and the network. Also, the opening and closing ceremonies will be attended together.

A team of young journalists from the Baltic States and Germany will also attend the conference. They will closly follow the cluster and GBYEN activities, as well as the keynote presentations and social programme. They will capture moments in short videos, make observations, and conduct interviews, all to provide comprehensive live and post-conference coverage.