We, the participants* at the seminar on Youth empowerment and young people's participation in society:

recognise the need for young people to be able to participate in political decision making in order to ensure a development that accommodates the needs and ideas of new generations;

request national and international organizations to include young people in their meetings and other activities;

underline the importance and the need to provide young people with opportunities to communicate, cooperate and share experiences across borders and cultures;

point to the importance of having the possibility to study or work abroad, participate in student exchange programmes and similar activities;

express concern about the existing barriers that make travel between our countries difficult and therefore stress the need for more simple  and inexpensive visa regimes in order to increase cooperation and contacts between our countries and regions;

recognize the important role of an independent and uncensored media in  informing the public in a free and neutral way;

stress the importance of open and uncensored channels of communication such as the Internet and social media;

express our deep concern for the political situation in Belarus and the lack of democracy;

we demand that the people of Belarus will have:

• freedom of speech
• freedom of assembly and the right to demonstrate
• organizational freedom
• a free press and free flow of information
• free and fair elections and election campaigns

call for the unconditional release of all political prisoners in Belarus;

welcome transparency in the EU cooperation with Belarus;

encourage freedom of expression and the right to participate in the society regardless of gender, ethnicity, functional ability, language, religion, sexual orientation and age;

acknowledge the importance of arenas for contact and discussion between Nordic, Baltic and Belarusian youth like this seminar and therefore encourage  the Nordic Council and the Baltic Assembly to facilitate such activities in the future;

ask the politicians in the Nordic Council and the Baltic Assembly to raise the question of democracy in Belarus on every suitable occasion.

*Belarus, Denmark, Estonia, Faeroe Islands, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Sweden