Youth and Europe: Identity, Goals and the future of Europe

The survey "Young people and Europe: How young people perceive Europe and their identity within it - Sustainable Development Goals and young people" has as its main objective the exploration of young people's identity, their expectations of Europe and the way their national and European identity is formed.

Young people aged 18-29 years old, residing in the whole territory of Greece constitute the target population of the survey. These are people who are 'indigenous' European citizens from the moment of their birth. They therefore have a dual citizenship, one side of which is based on their country of origin and the other on the country of origin's accession to the European Union. The exploration of young people's self-identification through their Greek and European identities appears rather important in the post-COVID-19 era, as the pandemic has abolished the borders between countries and indicated the common destiny of the world's citizens. European citizenship defined key parameters for addressing the pandemic through practical interventions in the daily lives of Greek citizens, as well as their access to forms of prevention, such as vaccination. The pandemic crisis, however, especially for young people, comes in a time sequence in which a decade-long economic crisis has preceded it, during which the Greeks, as members of the European Union, were placed in the international spotlight as borrowers who relied on the political-economic mechanisms of the European Union to avert the possibility of national bankruptcy.

The international current reality that we have just described support the necessity of the present research that focuses on the identification of the European and national identity of young Greeks. The focus on the youth age group, moreover, attempts to narrow the scope of the target population in order to study in depth elements of self-identification of young people, as they are at a developmental stage of their life cycle that determines the definition of their individual adult identity.

The reason for this study is the declaration of 2022 as the European Year of Youth and constitutes an action for Greece's participation in the main objectives of this European decision.

The research focuses on the following thematic axes, the choice of which was based both on the scope of the research and on the key objectives for youth adopted by the European Union:

• National and European identity
• Common European experiences
• Greece in Europe
• Entitativity
• Climate change
• Environment and climate
• Digital transition and rights
• European Youth Strategy