The Trilateral Youth Forum initially grew out of a German-Russian context with the goal to broaden the bilateral format into a trialogue in order to include Poland as the European Union’s largest country in Eastern Europe. Trilateral cooperation had already existed in the field of academia (Frankfurt/ Oder, Torun, Kaliningrad) and in diplomacy.

With the aim of adding the perspective of active young people to the new trialogue, DRJUG e.V. (the Alumni Association of the German-Russian Youth Parliament), the Student Parliament of the Republic of Poland, the University of Warsaw Students’ Union and the Russian-Polish Youth Council teamed up in 2013 to organize the first Trilateral Youth Forum in Warsaw.

The Forum was then successfully held in Munich in 2014, in Moscow in 2015, in Wroclaw in 2016 and followed by the forum in Bad Freienwalde close to Potsdam in October 2017. Bad Freienwalde was a symbolic location regarding the idea of the forum: located right on the German-Polish border, the city of Bad Freienwalde has a great history and is home to many notable people. Bad Freienwalde is associated with the famous Foreign Minister of Germany Walther Rathenau. In 2018, the Trilateral Youth Forum moved to Kazan, the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia.

In 2019, the VII. German-Polish-Russian Trialogue brought together students and young professionals in Gdansk, Poland. The participants visited the commemoration ceremony of the 80th anniversary of the beginning of World War II. Much attention during the forum was paid to the historical memory shared by the three countries.

Continuing interest in our project and positive feedback spur our motivation to continue the work in this area. Due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic the forum initially planned for May 2020 was postponed to May 2021. Stay tuned for updates!