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EU Parliament, EU Commission, and NATO – concluding the German-Baltic Conference 2025 in Brussels.

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Each year, the German-Baltic Conference brings together committed students and young professionals to debate today’s most pressing geopolitical challenges - and to craft concrete policy solutions for tomorrow. Under the 2025 motto “Rethinking Security through Youth,” this

year’s conference was structured around three thematic clusters:


  • A) European Security and Defence Innovations

  • B) European Security and International Cooperation

  • C) European Security and Discourse


The resulting policy papers, developed collaboratively by the participants, are available for download at the end of this article, and a full conference recap can be found here.


Living up to the spirit of #EuropeShallHearYou, selected delegates from each cluster, together with representatives of the German-Baltic Future Foundation, traveled to Brussels from December 2-4 to present their ideas directly to key European and transatlantic institutions: the European Parliament, the European Commission, and NATO Headquarters.


Hearing in the European Parliament

Despite a highly intensive end-of-year phase in the European Parliament, the cluster delegates and foundation representatives were warmly welcomed by two members of the parliament: Rasa Juknevičienė, former Minister of Defence of Lithuania and current vice-chair women of the Delegation to the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly (DEPA) and Sabrina Repp, member of the Committee on Culture and Education.


Over the course of two hours, the policy papers were presented and discussed with both MEPs, resulting in fruitful conversations and valuable feedback from the politicians. Both Ms. Juknevičienė and Ms. Repp praised the quality, ambition, and relevance of the proposals and emphasized the importance of transforming promising ideas into tangible policy impact.


In particular, proposals such as strengthening the Erasmus+ infrastructure for resilience-building and security dialogue were highlighted as having strong potential for real-world implementation.




Presentation in the European Commission

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Following the parliamentary hearing, the delegation continued to the Berlaymont Building, headquarters of the European Commission, where they were received by the Cabinet of Andrius Kubilius, Commissioner for Defence and Space.


The youth representatives presented their findings to Jonas Urbanavičius (Policy Assistant) and Julius Meska (Trainee). The discussion offered valuable institutional insight into how the proposed recommendations resonate within the Commission’s current strategic priorities, providing the clusters with targeted feedback from a policy-execution perspective.



Discourse with the delegations of Lithuania and Estonia at the NATO headquarters.

The final stop of the Brussels visit led the delegation to NATO Headquarters, where they engaged in two separate meetings with the Lithuanian and Estonian delegations. The Lithuanian delegation was represented by Gediminas Kuras (Minister Counselor). Estonia’s delegation was represented by Jüri Luik (Ambassador) and Erik Eenlo (Representative of Political Section).


Here, the clusters extended their European-focused policy insights to the broader transatlantic security context. While not all recommendations were a perfect fit for NATO’s institutional scope, both delegations expressed strong appreciation for the analytical depth and policy maturity of the proposals. Notably, Ambassador Luik emphasized his openness to continue the dialogue should the clusters choose to further develop their concepts.




The German-Baltic Future Foundation is immensely proud of the achievements of all three clusters and the successful Brussels outreach. This experience once again demonstrated how youth-driven policy thinking can meaningfully contribute to Europe’s security debate when given the right platform.


A special thank-you goes to Linus Kühl, Head of the German Country Office of the German-Baltic Future Foundation, and Frederike Kanschat, Cluster Coordinator of the German-Baltic Conference, whose outstanding dedication made this trip possible.


We also extend our sincere gratitude to:

  • MEPs Rasa Juknevičienė and Sabrina Repp,

  • Jonas Urbanavičius and Julius Meska from the Cabinet of Commissioner Andrius Kubilius,

  • Gediminas Kuras (Lithuania to NATO), and

  • Jüri Luik and Erik Eenlo (Estonia to NATO),

for their warm welcome, openness to dialogue, and continued support for youth-led policy engagement.


The Policy Papers of Clusters A-C can be downloaded below:


 
 
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