In the toolbox of German-Greek relations, the German-Greek Youth Office (DGJW) – known in German as the Deutsch-Griechisches Jugendwerk and in Greek as the Ελληνογερμανικό Ίδρυμα Νεολαίας – is a relatively young institution. Established under a bilateral agreement signed in 2019, the organization began operating in 2021. This summer, it will mark its fifth anniversary with events in Thessaloniki and Leipzig, home to its two headquarters.
The objectives set out in the founding agreement are ambitious. The Youth Office is intended to help young people from both countries “engage with one another in a deeper way in order to promote mutual understanding, friendship and cooperation between the two states.” A key addition follows: the aim is to “shape a shared present and future in Europe, mindful of the past.”
Five years on, the organization has reason to be proud of its record – or so the message went at an information event hosted by the DGJW recently in Piraeus. According to its statistics, the office has supported 930 bilateral exchange programs involving more than 27,000 participants from both countries. More than seventy attendees, most of them representatives of schools and extracurricular organizations, gathered in the auditorium of the Ionidios School in the heart of the port city to learn more about the available programs and sources of funding for exchanges with Germans in their country. For many, it was their first encounter with the program.
It soon became clear that the DGJW’s new Greek leadership is seeking to expand its public outreach and attract new audiences. The organization’s new Secretary General, Panagiota Pavlou, took office at the beginning of May and has brought a visible sense of renewed energy to the role.
The political highlight of the event was the appearance of Domna Michailidou, the minister responsible for the initiative at Greece’s Ministry of Social Cohesion and Family Affairs. Responsibility for the project originally lay with the Ministry of Education. Now, the 38-year-old family minister has infused the initiative with fresh momentum and elevated its political profile. Not only was this DGJW’s first public event in the Attica region; it was also the first time that a member of the government’s inner circle had publicly and officially lent political support to the project.
Michailidou described German-Greek youth exchanges as “the right idea” before drawing a connection to her own constituency. “Piraeus is an outward-looking city,” she said. “That is exactly what we are doing through the exchange program, we are looking outward, and that brings new ideas to our children.”
Speaking with the author, the minister credited her Secretary General, Konstantinos Gloumis-Atsalakis, with being the driving force behind this renewed political support. Like the minister herself, he spent many years abroad and understands firsthand the value of cross-border exchanges. “Every exchange experience is far more than just a trip,” he said. “It is an investment in knowledge, cooperation and our shared European future.”
The unmistakable new sense of momentum at the DGJW coincides with an important institutional change. For years, the organization’s effectiveness had been constrained by a financing dispute between Athens and Berlin. The original agreement stipulated that funding should be provided “in equal shares” by both governments. Germany’s push for increased funding to enable additional exchanges met with little enthusiasm in Athens for a long time.
This financial reluctance was often attributed to the influence of “reparations hardliners” – those political forces that had watched the German-Greek youth exchange initiative with suspicion from the outset and, in some cases, openly sought to obstruct it. In the view of the DGJW’s critics, who are primarily found on the political left and within nationalist circles, the programs served to indoctrinate Greek youth and divert attention from the central issue of Germany’s responsibility for reparations payments.
The dispute over funding arrangements has now been resolved. According to Secretary General Gloumis-Atsalakis, this was achieved through “an agreement at the political level.” Diplomatic sources in Athens say that Berlin and Athens agreed to remove the parity clause from the original treaty – a provision that had increasingly been viewed as impractical – and to formalize the change through an amendment agreement. “Each side contributes what it can. It does not have to be equal,” is the new formula of flexibility.
Arriving just in time for the anniversary celebrations, the revised arrangement opens additional room for new initiatives. That much is suggested by decisions taken by the DGJW’s supervisory board, which met in Berlin in early March. “In the future, programs in the field of vocational education and training will also be introduced in order to create more opportunities for professional exchange and experience-sharing,” the organization said in a statement.
Yet more important than individual program details is the broader political climate surrounding the exchange project – particularly in Athens, where the reservations that initially accompanied the initiative now appear to have largely disappeared. “Cooperation has become the norm, and the problems of the past are behind us,” Secretary General Gloumis-Atsalakis said, expressing optimism about the future of an intergovernmental initiative aimed at overcoming the prejudices and stereotypes that continue to cloud the otherwise positive relationship between Germany and Greece.
Dr. Ronald Meinardus is a senior research fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP).
