About

Meet the new EYL40 Class of 2024!

This year’s EYL40 Class of 2024 includes an Olympic swimmer, a glaciologist, politicians from all levels of government and members of national parliaments, a winemaker, green tech entrepreneurs and social activists, prize-winning journalists, Unicorn and start-up founders and CEOs, a pioneering playwright of Roma feminist theatre and many more!

 

 


Bold leadership, ground-breaking ideas, unparalleled passion …

We’ve learned time and again that the challenges of the 21st century and of our ever complex world cannot be addressed using the rulebooks of the past. The world is screaming for a new type of leadership and a Renewed Social Contract in which the private sector, local and multilateral institutions, and citizens can collaborate and drive change.

Today’s leaders may look back in time for inspiration, but they must lead with innovation.

The European Young Leaders represent an alternative infrastructure of leadership – a new generation of leaders able to inspire action and generate change. Together, their passion, diversity of backgrounds and opinions, and innovative thinking create the right formula for generating fresh ideas to build a more forward-thinking Europe.

Our European leaders are scientists, artists, journalists, entrepreneurs and astronomers. They are citizens and their thinking is not bound by local and multilateral institutions, traditional political frameworks or bureaucracy. They provide alternative perspectives to EU decision-makers and challenge the status quo.

They help take Europe out of Brussels. In their own countries, cities and communities, the European Young Leaders also play an essential role in reconnecting people with and rebuilding trust in politics by engaging a wider community around key EU policy issues that need a whole-of-economy, whole-of-society approach to progress more quickly. They are facilitating citizens’ participation in the creation of a more equal, innovative and inclusive Europe and helping build a European identity.

The programme in the next years will take a new localism lens, bringing together these thinkers and leaders to act on some of the key issues affecting Europe’s future: supporting the green and digital transformation, strengthening our democracy, improving relations with our neighbours, increasing power sharing and building a more diverse Europe.

Succeeding in these policies and getting more citizens engaged in European elections will be our litmus test.


Tune in to the EYL40s on Friends of Europe’s podcasts

Policy Voices | Are we alone in the universe?

Leading view

Policy Voices | Are we alone in the universe?

Start playback
Policy Voices | Like Goebbels: Polish propaganda and the demise of democracy

Leading view

Policy Voices | Like Goebbels: Polish propaganda and the demise of democracy

Start playback
Policy Voices | The Netherlands chose the far-right. What happens next?

Leading view

Policy Voices | The Netherlands chose the far-right. What happens next?

Start playback
Policy Voices Podcast | Keeping the human in the loop: How to make a success story of AI in health

Leading view

Policy Voices Podcast | Keeping the human in the loop: How to make a success story of AI in health

Start playback
Continue to Meet the EYL

Meet the EYL40

Dawood Azami
Dawood Azami

Multi-Media Editor (News and Current Affairs) at BBC World Service and 2012 European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Dawood Azami

Dawood is one of the most promising young journalists and scholars of his generation in the UK. He has been working for the BBC World Service in London as a Senior Broadcast Journalist and is a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Westminster, where he teaches Globalization, Power and International Governance. He joined the BBC in 1998 and also worked as the BBC World Service Bureau Chief and Editor in Kabul, Afghanistan. He was also a visiting scholar at Ohio State University, USA. He holds three Bachelor’s and three Master’s degrees, including Science, Law, International Relations and Diplomacy. In 2010, Dawood became the youngest person to ever win the biggest award in the BBC, the “Global Reith Award for Outstanding Contribution”. He is also a poet/writer, calligrapher and painter/artist.

Photo of Anders Bæksgaard Christensen
Anders Bæksgaard Christensen

Editor and Head of Politics, National Security and Public Administration at Politiken and 2023 European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Anders Bæksgaard Christensen

Anders Bæksgaard is a political journalist from Denmark, who currently co-leads one of the country’s largest newsrooms at the prestigiously regarded newspaper, Politiken. He also heads the daily newspaper’s department on politics, national security and public administration. Bæksgaard has extensively covered the last three general elections in Denmark, while also providing political analysis for DR and TV2, two of the country’s major TV stations. The youngest political editor in Denmark at the time of his appointment, he previously headed the Politiken political editorial office after starting his career at Politiken as a political reporter. Bæksgaard has also covered Danish politics at the Berlingske Tidende daily newspaper’s editorial office and worked as a news coordinator at the Berlingske News Agency, beginning his journalism career as a researcher at the Danish Broadcasting Corporation.

Steffen Burkhardt
Steffen Burkhardt

Director of the International Media Centre Hamburg, 2013 European Young Leader

Show more information on Steffen Burkhardt

Steffen is Director of the International Media Centre Hamburg. He researches and teaches with a focus on media sociology, social media, privacy and public sphere. His current research includes the transformation of privacy as a consequence of the internationalisation and digitalisation of media. He is a Founding Member of the Global Communication Association and is associated with numerous international organisations and think-tanks. He is a member of the selection committee of the German National Academic Foundation and several trusts to promote press freedom, human rights and democracy.

Martin Buxant
Martin Buxant

Journalist and 2015-2016 European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Martin Buxant

Martin Buxant is the former editor-in-chief at LN24. He has been a reporter for La Libre Belgique and De Morgen, as well as an editor for the television programme “Politiquement Correct” on RTL-TVI during the most recent legislative and regional elections in Belgium. He has previously worked at the daily business newspaper L’Echo, where he served as both a political journalist and an editor. Buxant appears daily on the Bel-RTL television channel, where he conducted a political interview every morning. He is an accomplished author having most recently published a biography of the current Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Didier Reynders. Martin Buxant first entered the world of journalism in 2002, initially as a European correspondent and later as a political journalist.

Annalisa Camilli
Annalisa Camilli

Investigative journalist specialising in immigration and 2019 European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Annalisa Camilli

Annalisa is an Italian journalist credited for drawing attention to a wide variety of social issues. Currently working for the news magazine Internazionale, her articles have extensively covered immigration in Italy and Greece as well as human rights and gender inequality across Europe. Having previous experience at Associated press, her stories regularly underline the hardships endured by migrants while crossing the Mediterranean as well as their treatment once in Europe. She is the winner of the 2017 Anne Lindt journalism award for her investigation “The boat without a name” for which she has spent six months investigating the deadliest shipwreck, searching the 28 survivors who are now living all over Europe. She is also a regular contributor to international news outlets such as the Washington Tribune and Politico.

Matthew Caruana Galizia
Matthew Caruana Galizia

Investigative Journalist and Lead Engineer for the Paradise Papers Investigation and 2020-2021 European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Matthew Caruana Galizia

Matthew is a renowned Maltese journalist and software engineer with a distinguished career that spans over a decade. Having previously worked for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), he co-founded the organisation’s Data & Research Unit in 2014 and was a lead engineer on six major investigations, namely Offshore Leaks, Swiss Leaks, Luxembourg Leaks, Fatal Extraction, Panama Papers and Paradise Papers. The Unit’s core work on the Panama Papers notably won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting in 2017. He left the organisation in 2018 to continue working on the case around the assassination of his mother, Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Photo of Saška Cvetkovska
Saška Cvetkovska

Co-Founder, President and Editor-in-Chief of the Investigative Reporting Lab and 2023 European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Saška Cvetkovska

An award-winning investigative reporter from North Macedonia, Saska Cvetkovska co-founded the Investigative Reporting Lab, a non-profit media organisation that operates in the Balkans. As the Editor-in-Chief, she works to increase the impact of investigating reporting by creating new narratives through film and campaigning. Cvetkovska currently produces “Редакција” (“Newsroom”), a documentary series that follows investigative journalists to increase public trust in the media. Cvetkovska has worked on national and cross-border investigations that have exposed domestic and transnational crime, corruption, the illicit trade of arms and disinformation wars. Notably, she was the lead reporter of ‘Spooks and Spin – Information War in the Balkans’, the Organized Crime and Corruption Project (OCCRP) project that exposed Russian and US influence in information warfare during the 2016 US presidential election. In addition to offering pro bono training to justice institutions and mentoring young journalists, Cvetkovska has developed the Mediapedia database of media ownership and Getdata, an online tool that maps data resources.

Eva De Roo
Eva De Roo

Radio host at the VRT and 2019 European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Eva De Roo

Eva is a radio host for the Belgian national radio station Studio Brussel. Music had always been a constant in her life but it was only after getting a degree as an interpreter English-French that she decided to follow that passion. She had her first experience as a radio personality under the cover of darkness during “The Wild Bunch”, the late-night incubator for Studio Brussel’s young talent. Today, only 5 years after this first appearance, she has an eponymous prime-time radio show and has co-hosted “The Warmest Week” – Belgium’s biggest annual charity fundraiser, raising 17million last year – four times in a row. Combined with her career as a voice-actor, DJ and MC at music festivals, this has turned her into one of Belgium’s booming all-round media talents.

Stevan Dojčinović
Stevan Dojčinović

Investigative reporter, Editor-in-Chief of Crime and Corruption Reporting Network (KRIK) and 2022 European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Stevan Dojčinović

Stevan is a Serbian reporter, specialising in the investigation of organised crime, corruption, privatisation deals and money laundering. He is the Editor-in-Chief of KRIK and the Regional Editor of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) for the Balkans, prior to which he was the founding editor-in-chief of the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia. The author of “Šarić”, a book which dissects the role of the Balkan mafia in international cocaine smuggling, Steven also teaches journalists how to collect and analyse business data and property records. He has received national and international recognition for his journalistic work, most notably as the recipient of the Knight International Journalism Award, the CEI SEEMO Award for Outstanding Merits in Investigative Journalism and the Serbian National Award for Investigative Reporting. He was also a member of the award-winning OCCRP investigative team that uncovered links of the former Serbian government to organised crime.

Lina Ejeilat
Lina Ejeilat

Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of 7iber.com, 2017 MENA Young Leader

Show more information on Lina Ejeilat

Lina Ejeilat is co-founder and editor-in-chief of 7iber.com, a Jordanian citizen media platform and online magazine, created to inform and engage communities in order to develop a more open society. It is known for publishing taboo political, economic, social, and religious topics that mainstream media avoid. In addition to its online presence, 7iber.com delivers trainings, workshops, debates, and talks. Lina advocates for freedom of press, universal rights and access to information, taking part in numerous meetings and conferences in order to promote these.

Nassira El Moaddem
Nassira El Moaddem

Journalist, Author and Presenter, Arrêt Sur Images and 2018 European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Nassira El Moaddem

Nassira is a French journalist, who currently works as a reporter for the evening news at France 2 and an interviewer on the French parliamentary TV channel. She is the former director and editor-in-chief of the Bondy Blog, a news website which highlights the topic of ethnic diversity in France. In this role, she was notably among the few female editors-in-chief of a French national media outlet. Her work focused on local investigations related to marginalised people living on the outskirts of cities, particularly around Paris. She began her career as a TV reporter and news anchor at Itele/Canal+.

Melisa Erkurt
Melisa Erkurt

Journalist, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Die Chefredaktion and 2022 European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Melisa Erkurt

An Austrian journalist and author, Melisa founded @die_chefredaktion, an Instagram-based medium that produces diverse journalism by and for young people. Recognising that traditional media is too far removed from teenagers and young people, the account offers younger generations a new type of interactive journalism and has enjoyed tremendous success. As Editor-in-Chief, she leads a young editorial team in the production and publication of journalistic contributions and video reports on social and political topics. Melisa also hosts the Ö1 Sprechstunde podcast and writes two weekly columns for Falter and taz magazines on education policy and equal opportunities. Her report, “Generation haram – why schools have to learn to give everyone a voice”, on discrimination and restrictive culture in Austrian schools for Biber magazine is based on two years of research and first-hand experience as a former teacher. Generating significant public interest, the report went on to win Story of the Year at the Austrian Journalism Days.

Ignacio Escolar
Ignacio Escolar

Founder and Director at El Diario, 2013 European Young Leader

Show more information on Ignacio Escolar

Ignacio is a journalist, political analyst and Founder and Director of www.eldiario.es, an online media political analysis site. Previously Ignacio founded and managed the well-known newspaper Publico. He also manages www.escolar.net, the most popular and widely read political blog in Spain, which was named best political and journalist blog of the year in 2008 and 2009. Ignacio is also the founder of Bitban, a technology and design consulting company for Internet media communication, working with clients all over the world. In 2009 he was awarded the José Manuel Porquet Journalism Prize, the Mujeres Progresistas Prize for declining to publish prostitution ads in Publico and the Nicolas Salmeron for Human Rights Prize.

Agnesta Filatovė
Agnesta Filatovė

Creative entrepreneur, Member of the Lithuanian National Radio and TV Commission, and 2020-2021 European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Agnesta Filatovė

Agnesta is a Lithuanian image and executive specialist with extensive knowledge of the creative industry and public advocacy. She was the head of Lithuania’s annual Vilnius International Film Festival (VIFF) ‘Kino Pavasaris’, one of the biggest film festivals in the Baltic States. In 2019, VIFF screened around 170 films in 17 cities, 34% of which were made by women directors. Agnesta’s long career in the cultural environmental also extends to the role of coordinator at the European Commission’s 2007 MEDIA programme office in Lithuania, as well as a number of cultural projects, including the Latin American culture festival ‘In Latino’ and the educational cinema project for youths ‘Cine Book’ in Lithuania.

Mary Fitzgerald
Mary Fitzgerald

Non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute, and Senior Fellow for Peace, Security and Defence & Trustee of Friends of Europe

Show more information on Mary Fitzgerald

Mary Fitzgerald is a researcher and analyst specialising in the Mediterranean region with a particular focus on Libya. She has consulted for a number of international organisations including in the areas of peacebuilding and civil society. She has worked with the International Crisis Group (ICG), the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) and the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) among others. She is a Non-Resident Scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC, an Associate Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, King’s College London and an Associate Fellow at ISPI in Milan. Mary has also worked on wider initiatives with UNESCO, the Anna Lindh Foundation, the British Council and other cultural organisations. Her writing has appeared in publications including Foreign Policy, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Financial Times and The Guardian.

Continue to Events

Events

view more events
Continue to Insights

Insights

view more insights
Continue to Selection process

Selection process

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS/NOMINATIONS FOR THE EYL CLASS OF 2025 IS NOW OPEN

The European Young Leaders (EYL40) programme is a unique, inventive and multi-stakeholder programme that aims to promote a European identity by engaging the continent’s most promising talents in initiatives that will shape Europe’s future.

The European Young Leaders represent a new generation of European leaders from all over the continent and various backgrounds, including politics, business, civil society, academia, arts, science and the media.

The programme acts as a forum for those who have already established themselves at the forefront of their professions to meet, discuss and collaborate with their counterparts from other fields of expertise. Previous candidates include government ministers, CEOs, Michelin-starred chefs, international film directors and high-profile journalists.

Since the launch of the programme, we have gradually taken steps to ensure the diversity and exceptional quality of its selection process. We have made sure that its comprehensive and competitive nature ensures the identification and selection of remarkable individuals.

We aim to select 40+ European Young Leaders of diverse backgrounds to enable a broad exchange of ideas, creating the basis for a new generation of engaged European leaders.

SELECTION CRITERIA

  • Candidates must be between 30 and 40 years of age (born on or after 1 January 1985).
  • Candidates must be a national of an EU member state, the UK, Ukraine, Moldova or one of the 6 Balkan states currently on the path towards EU integration (Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo*, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia).
  • Candidates should have established themselves at the highest levels of their chosen profession or be on track to do so.
  • Candidates must be committed to serve society at large through noteworthy contributions and have demonstrated a record of significant achievements and outstanding professional experience.
  • Candidates are also evaluated based on their ability to contribute to the enrichment of the programme as a whole.
  • Candidates are required to be fluent in English as it is the working language of the programme.
  • Candidates must commit to participating in at least one of the two EYL seminars during the programme year, usually scheduled for March and September.

Please click HERE for the Selection Guidelines 2025 that will give you an idea of the process and will provide you with a link to the nomination/application form.

Should you have any questions or need any additional information, please do not hesitate to contact us at eyl40@friendsofeurope.org.

We look forward to receiving your applications and nominations.

* References to Kosovo here are used without prejudice to positions on status and are in line with UN Security Council resolution 1244/99 and the International Court of Justice Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence.

Continue to Partners

Videos

view more
Track title

Category

00:0000:00
Stop playback
Video title

Category

Close
Africa initiative logo

Dismiss