Our history

In November 1991, the Council of Europe’s Directorate of Youth and Sport organised a week of reflection for youth leaders, social workers and project managers coming from all over Europe. This seminar was the first of its kind : a gathering of young people that were not attached to or involved with any specific organisation.

During that week, some participants expressed their interest in staying in contact at European level in order to continue to share practices, expertise, methods and work together on common issues to support young people in making their voices heard.

With the support of the Directorate of Youth and Sport of the Council of Europe, a European structure was created to achieve this idea. First called Cable 5, the network organised its first activity at the European Youth Centre of Strasbourg in October 1992. The youth seminar “Youth Express” brought together 60 young people with fewer opportunities, coming from 18 different European countries.

The network was officially registerd at the Court of Strasbourg, France in January 1993 as Youth Express Network (Réseau Express Jeunes in French).