Youth in Struggle
A Generation between Crises – A Generation that Stands Up
IN BRIEF
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- Young people across Europe face precarity, housing insecurity and militarisation.
- Neoliberal policies have eroded social rights and deepened inequality.
- The far right is actively targeting working-class youth.
- Housing, labour rights and public education are central battlegrounds.
- A united, anti-militarist and anti-imperialist youth movement is essential.
A Generation Under Pressure
Across Europe, a generation is growing up in uncertainty and exploitation.
Decades of neoliberalism have eroded public life and collective rights, leaving working-class youth trapped between precarious work, housing insecurity, and a future shaped by war, fear and inequality.
European institutions, instead of protecting social rights, continue to prioritise financial markets and multinational corporations, widening the divide between centre and periphery, rich and working class.
Yet our generation resists. From student movements to climate strikes, from rent struggles to feminist mobilisations, young people across Europe are standing up for dignity, solidarity and democracy. These struggles are not isolated. They express a shared demand for a Europe that serves people — not profit.
As the youth network of the Party of the European Left, ELYN seeks to channel this emancipatory energy and growing frustration into a coordinated working-class youth movement capable of articulating a real alternative to neoliberalism. We stand for a Europe built on peace, equality and the rights of peoples — a Europe based on collective ownership, feminist transformation and democratic participation.
Youth and Historical Responsibility
Young people are both the present and the future. Historically, youth have played decisive roles in mass movements — in the Resistance during the Second World War, in protests against the Vietnam War, in May ’68, in anti-colonial and anti-fascist struggles — and today in mobilisations against the genocide of the Palestinian people.
Without working-class youth, there can be no social change.
The Battle for Young Minds
A struggle is underway to win over the youth. Establishment forces attempt to divide young people — workers against the unemployed, nationals against migrants — using racism and discrimination to advance austerity. At the same time, governments seek to militarise young minds: voluntary and compulsory military service, soldiers in schools, aggressive recruitment campaigns.
Far-right movements are also gaining ground, especially among young working-class men. They promote racism, hatred and hyper-masculinist narratives based on competition and division. We cannot leave young people to these forces. We fight for a shared working-class identity — recognising young people as those who produce wealth and sustain society.
A European Youth Movement
We call for building a European youth movement that is anti-militarist, pacifist, anti-imperialist and based on solidarity — linking peace with democracy, sovereignty and social transformation.
Housing
The housing crisis defines the material reality of an entire generation. Rents rise faster than wages. Homes are treated as financial assets. Millions of young working-class people delay or abandon independence. The crisis is not accidental — it is the result of privatisation, speculation and financialization. Platforms such as Airbnb and multinational real estate funds commodify neighbourhoods, while buildings stand empty and homelessness rises. Housing policy prioritises profit over dignity.
WE DEMAND A EUROPEAN INITIATIVE FOR THE RIGHT TO HOUSING, INCLUDING:
- Rent regulation
- Expansion of public and cooperative housing
- Ban on speculative ownership
- End to evictions
- Social use or expropriation of empty properties
- Affordable student housing and income-based support for youth
ELYN will coordinate with the Housing Network of the Party of the European Left to strengthen cross-border campaigns and solidarity.
Try securing a bank loan with a temporary contract and a flexible job — this is the reality for many young workers.
Housing is not just about shelter — it is about power and class struggle.
WORK
Young workers face precarious contracts, temporary work and instability. Financial insecurity makes independence difficult. Many cannot strike or organise for fear of losing their job or defaulting on loans. Labour rights are fundamental to democracy — especially for young workers who need stability to build a future.
Working-class youth — especially women, LGBTQIA+ people and migrants — are disproportionately affected by low wages, unpaid internships and new labour risks in the platform economy.
WE DEMAND:
- Shorter working hours
- Fair wages
- Stronger regulation of platform work
- Collective bargaining rights
- Abolition of unpaid internships
The future of work must be based on dignity and collective organisation.
Education and Artificial Intelligence
Education must be public, free, secular and critical. It must empower, not reproduce inequality. Neoliberal reforms have turned education into a market, students into clients, and teachers into precarious workers.
WE DEMAND:
- Increased public investment
- Universal access to higher education
- Defence of universities as democratic spaces
Artificial intelligence must serve public interest, not corporate profit. It must not deepen inequality or replace human learning.
European minorities and people’s rights
Across Europe there are stateless nations and ethnic minorities that lack the necessary tools to protect and uphold the rights of their people. Rights that are in danger due to capitalist and imperialist interests. As youth, we stand for the democratic right to the self-determination of the peoples around the world, which should include the right to preserve their own cultures and languages and to express their sovereignty by deciding how they want to organise themselves and manage their own resources, among others. The working-class young members of these peoples and communities must face an even more complicated life, as they encounter discrimination for expressing themselves in their own languages or for maintaining their cultural identity in everyday life, workplaces and public services. The dominant cultural systems are imposed by the economic and political elites as a way to control and educate the working class under the capitalist production and patriarchy schemes. As a result, we have seen how governments and institutions in Europe have neither listened nor taken action to address the various economic, political, and cultural forms of oppression that minorities continue to suffer.
Therefore, we call for a more diverse and inclusive understanding of all the peoples in Europe, our cultures and identities, and for accepting and defending minorities’ rights in order to build a more just and democratic continent.
International Youth Solidarity
ELYN calls for a European network of anti-fascist youth organisations to coordinate campaigns and resist repression. Our response to authoritarianism must be internationalist, feminist and rooted in solidarity among peoples.
We refuse precarity, militarisation and division. We fight for a Europe of peace, housing, dignity and collective power.
Young people are not a lost generation — we are a generation in struggle.
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