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1. Formal Mechanisms of Consultation

2. Actors

3. Information on the extent of youth participation

4. Outcomes

5. Large-scale initiatives for dialogue or debate between public institutions and young people

Formal Mechanisms of Consultation

In the Czech Republic, there are no legal provisions or obligatory policy guidelines on public consultation in general, or in the youth field. The Methodology of Participation of Non-Governmental Organisations in Advisory and Working Bodies and in the Creation of State Administration Documents was approved by the Government Resolution of 24 September 2025. The main objective of the Methodology is to contribute to the effective use of participatory processes in the functioning of advisory and working bodies of ministries and other central administrative offices and in the creation of public policies, strategic materials, legislative and other non-legislative materials by ministries and other central administrative offices. However, it is only recommendatory and does not address the specific needs of young people. 

Mechanisms for youth engagement in the youth policy are thus more or less traditional or non-formal. We can identify three basic mechanisms/levels of youth involvement in the context of Czech Youth Policy:

1. In 2024, a Youth Panel was established as an independent consultative advisory body operating within the Education and Youth Section of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS). The aim of the Panel is to enable young people from a wide spectrum of Czech society to contribute to the formulation, monitoring and evaluation of youth policy through interactive cooperation with MEYS. The role of MEYS is to process all opinions and suggestions arising from the Panel's deliberations into well-arranged outputs, to analyse them and, to the maximum extent possible, take them into accounton the formulation, development, monitoring and evaluation of youth policy.
   The Youth Department has a coordinating role in relation to the Panel, and ensures the selection of members, convenes meetings, prepares documents, drafts minutes and final recommendations from the Panel's deliberations. Methods of Work are chosen as much as possible on the basis of interactive cooperation (e.g. world café, fish bowl, etc.). Every position and opinion expressed is recorded. The Panel must be regularly informed about how their suggestions have been dealt with.
   The panel is composed of 20 members, aged 15-26, with a two-year mandate. As youth is a heterogeneous group with different needs, the aim was to ensure as much diversity as possible to obtain the widest range of views and needs, taking into account age, region, status (employed, university, secondary school, grammar school) and gender. To involve youth from groups at risk, a part of the members was nominated by organisations working with such youth groups and a part was selected from an open call (application quality criterion and diversity criterion).
2. Young people and their representatives can directly approach the Youth Department with their needs or ideas as well as contact any other specific institution or political body dealing with the topic.
3. Structured Dialogue with Youth has been incorporated as a permanent mechanism for involvement in Youth Policymaking also on a national level (since 2014 via Youth Strategy 2020).

The Structured Dialogue with Youth in the Czech Republic serves as a permanent forum for common discussion on priorities and topics of the Youth Policy.

Coordination is ensured by the National Working Group for the Structured Dialogue with Youth together with the EU Structured Dialogue with Youth and Youth organisations.

Structured Dialogue uses public consultation, workshops, discussions, online questionnaires, online discussions, essay competitions and other tools to reach young people and support them to participate in Youth Policy-making and reflecting on youth issues in the public space.

Young people and youth organisations are encouraged to organise their own projects and send their recommendations and outcomes (publicly displayed online on the website of the Structured Dialogue).

Based on the outcomes the Working Group also prepares National reports on actual topics when decided by the Group.

By tackling a specific topic, where specific target groups should be actively involved, the Working Group prepares a contact database of specific and wide stakeholders, to invite these specific youth groups, their youth organisations and the institutions working with these specific target groups.

Before that, in the period of 2010 to 2014, this function was only partially substituted by the project Kecejme do toho (Have Your Say), run by the Czech Council of Children and Youth in cooperation with the National Parliament of Children and Youth. The project was active until the end of 2015.

Actors

There is no general mechanism for selecting representatives of young people or youth organisations in public bodies dealing with their issues. However, the example of the Youth Panel of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports begins to inspire other ministries.

There are some relevant public bodies which could be targeted by young people or their representatives.

Advisory body of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports with representatives of youth organisations:

• Council for Youth, Non-formal and Leisure-based Education (Rada pro mládež, neformální a zájmové vzdělávání) - established in 2022, it is an advisory body of the Minister and is established in accordance with the Ministry of Education's organizational regulations. It replaced a similar structure, so called Chamber of Youth, functioning before. The Council is composed of representatives of youth organisations, youth representatives to the UN, member of the Youth Panel (see above), experts in the youth field and representatives of other ministries dealing with young people. It meets approx. 6 times a year and is the main coordinating body for the creation and execution of the national youth policy.

Governmental bodies

• Governmental Council for Non-State Non-Profit Organisations (Rada vlády pro nestátní neziskové organizace)
• Committee for the Rights of the Child (Výbor pro práva dítěte), a committee of the Governmental Council for Human Rights.

Semi budgetary organizations of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports:

• Centre for International Cooperation in Education (Dům zahraniční spolupráce)
• National Pedagogy Institute - since 2020, until the end of 2019 National Institute for Further Education (Národní institut pro dalšího vzdělávání) and National Institute for Education (Národní ústav pro vzdělávání)

Parliamentary bodies

Chamber of Deputies Committee for science, education, youth and sports and its Subcommittee for youth, if established (negotiations are ongoing as of February 2026 abut its re-establishment after the recent elections), where discussions are held often with the participation of the national youth council and youth organisations and from their initiative.

Information on the extent of youth participation

There is no state systematic mechanism to monitor and evaluate all levels and tools of youth participation in youth policy-making or in public affairs.

In case of participation in the Structured Dialogue, National Working Group collects and publishes this information on its website and in National reports from the consultation. News and best practices are shared on a monthly basis.

Outcomes

The only publicly available outcome of the consultation with youth is the National Report from the Structured Dialogue. (Reports exist since the end of 2015, before 2015 no such reports containing information about youth existed, and only EU national consultation reports are available). Outcomes from third-party projects in the scope of the Structured Dialogue and sent to the National Working Group are also published on the website of the Structured Dialogue. 

Outcomes of the previous project Kecejme do toho (Have Your Say) are available on its website but they contain only the political recommendations and partially the process.

Large-scale initiatives for dialogue or debate between public institutions and young people

The only initiative from the state in this sphere is the Structured Dialogue with Youth described above. Within the system of the Structured Dialogue, non-state actors can also apply for support for their initiatives for local, regional and national level supported by the KA3 Structured Dialogue with Youth from the Erasmus+ programme (EU funding). 

Another non-state project supporting Youth Participation was, until 2023, Youth Speak Up! by Young Political Scientists Club. They supported high school students in citizens education and participation and have organised a national discussion involving 20 successful young people across social sectors. They brought together 21 ideas for the future Czech Republic which created a political manifesto presented to political parties. Some parliamentary political parties and their Youth Wings supported the initiative and they set together an initiative of young members of parliaments and other young experts to work on the legislative changes to fulfil the most realistic points from the manifesto related to legislative framework.