For the 80th UN General Assembly Session, the European Union will be represented by Veronika Novotná and Lars Westra, selected EU Youth Delegates for 2025-2026. 

As part of the EU Youth Delegate program, the youth delegates will work to encourage young Europeans to participate in the UN’s work and increase the visibility of the EU at the UN. Given the challenges that disproportionately affect young people such as climate change and rising inequality, it is important that they have a strong voice to raise their concerns and find solutions. Youth engagement with these issues and the UN’s work will also be critical in ensuring action is taken.

Veronika Novotná

Veronika Novotná is pursuing a master’s degree in law and a bachelor’s degree in political science and international relations at Charles University in Prague, where she also serves as a member of the Presidium of the Academic Senate.

As a Czech UN Youth Delegate for 2024-2025, her mandate focused on tackling the issue of unpaid internships and making opportunities for youth more accessible, particularly by overcoming informational barriers in regional areas. She has coordinated a National Youth Advisory Group of the UN Department at the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which has provided inputs for ongoing UN negotiations from a youth perspective.

She also co-initiated the Global Youth Call to Action on Mental Health, a comprehensive manifesto designed to guide the global community’s approach to youth mental health and emphasize the urgency of this issue.

In the past, she served as chief editor and content creator for the youth-led project Politics (not only) for Youth, which aimed to encourage youth voter turnout and explain domestic and international developments to young people. Additionally, she partnered with the European Parliament’s Liaison Office in Prague to create educational videos explaining the work and key topics discussed within the institution, helping to bring the EU closer to Czech citizens.

Her experience as the main project manager of a complex competition for high school students in Czechia, which focused on security and international relations in the context of the EU and NATO, along with her role as an organizer of the Prague Student Summit (a model UN), centering her efforts on youth employment, and an internship at the Sub-Saharan Africa Department of the Czech MFA, has broadened her perspective on the multifaceted nature of global challenges and inequalities and the necessity of youth involvement in addressing these concerns.

Working towards the realization of the SDGs, as an EU Youth Delegate to the UN, Veronika seeks to continue her advocacy for paid internships and the removal of barriers preventing young people from accessing the labor market. She also aims to address the global challenges of youth mental health and well-being that arise (not only) from these obstacles.

Lars Westra

Lars Westra from the Netherlands has been advocating for youth participation from a young age, working to ensure that young people are heard when decisions about their lives and futures are made. He leads his own organization in which he actively promotes and practices youth engagement in policy-making. In addition, he serves as Vice Chair of the Dutch NGO Coalition on Children’s Rights.

Lars sees his new role as Youth Delegate as a unique opportunity to put meaningful youth participation into practice at the highest levels of politics and diplomacy. As a delegate, he aims to bridge the gap between young people and international policymakers — ensuring that youth voices are represented in decision-making processes, and empowering young people with knowledge about international politics and how they can make their voices heard.