HOW TO BUILD A YOUTH WING

”YOU JUST CANNOT
OVERESTIMATE THE IMPOR-
TANCE OF THE POLITICAL
VOICE OF THE YOUTH”
Raised in a politically active family, member of the Danish Parliament, Ulla
Tørnæs, has always felt a natural urge to be involved in politics. A core family value
is to seek political influence, take responsibility and thereby always striving to
change society in a more liberal direction. Starting her political career as president
of the Liberal Danish Students and Vice-president of the International Federation
of Liberal and Radical Youth was totally in line with her childhood conviction.
“My first political achievement was in the early 1990s. The Berlin Wall
had been torn down and there was an urgent need for democracy
building in the former communist countries. I was the Vice President
in the International Federation of Liberal and Radical Youth and we
played an enormous role working together with the youth in the
East European countries supporting them in their tremendous task
of how to get organised as youth and build up their political structures,”
says Ulla Tørnæs.
Today she is able to look back on a political career covering almost
20 years as Member of Parliament for the Danish Liberal Party – 10
of them as a Minister of Education and Development respectively.
“Whenever I am with young people, I never miss an opportunity to have a conversation about
the major importance of youth being organised, getting involved and taking responsibility. Obviously,
it is also the hard way. It’s much easier to stand by the side and criticize others. But you can’t
overestimate the importance for the democratic society of young people engaging, and we really
have to encourage this as much as we can,” says the former minister.
She points to three important factors:
First, the concrete political skills acquired through the youth political work, where the mistakes,
challenges and experiences are invaluable factors for those who later on become MPs.
Second, the direct political influence the youth gets through the direct access to Members of
Parliament or – in case the mother party has the power – to the actual government.
Third, the bold messages from youth expressing their views from a solid platform in terms of
their youth wing is often very creative and a good stimulus to the political debate.
The combination of formal and informal cooperation between the youth wing and the mother
party is hard to beat: “Within our party we have formal cooperation with the youth wing. They are
represented on our Board, and once a year we have a formal meeting for all of us where the youth
wing presents their views on a long list of issues. On a more day-to-day basis the youth wing will
also approach us in a more informal way with their ideas and formulations for new policies.”
She also points to the national elections as the hey-day for the two parties to work as a team,
the youth wing taking the responsibility for a lot of the practical work, but in which the youth is
also indispensable for the development of political campaigns and messages.
“A lot of meaningful cooperation is taking place all the time, but without the independence of
the youth wing to come out with sharp messages – also in the recruitment of their members – we
would lose half of the potential and the creative potential of the youth,” says Ulla Tørnæs.
HOW TO BUILD A YOUTH WING DANIsH INsTITUTe fOr pArTIes AND DemOcrAcY pAGe 49