Inštitucionálne zázemie mládežníckej politiky Slovenska: priestor pre europeizáciu?

Abstract

Youth policy of the Slovak Republic in the present is in development process of a new strategy for youth. At the national level, the policy is made by interdepartmental and interdisciplinary cooperation accommodated by the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic. In a process of policy making, the Ministry cooperates also with different actors on local and regional levels as well as on the European level. European Union develops its own youth policy in the form of Youth Strategy 2019-2027.Youth policy is, however, only a weak competence of the EU, while every country develops its own policy on the national level. Thereby it is important to focus on the level of influence of the EU through Europeanization on the Slovak youth policy, and on the question, whether there is any Europeanization during policy process at the national level at all. The aim of this work was to analyse the process of agenda-setting and policy formulation during the policy process of youth policy making under the responsibility of the Ministry and to investigate possible influence of Europeanization on this phase of a policy cycle. By using qualitative data analysis and process-tracing method we were able to find some evidence of possible Europeanization in early phases of the policy-process. On the other side, we found limitations of an EU influence on that process mainly as a result of non-binding nature of the open method of coordination.