Young people are the future and empowering them to become social entrepreneurs is an important policy priority. On this episode of The Social Economist, Toby speaks with Julien De Beys - a Legal Officer at the European Commission in DG EMPL and one of the masterminds of the Youth Entrepreneurship Policy Academy (YEPA) - about youth, social entrepreneurship and the Social Economy Action Plan. To help unpick these exciting developments, Toby is joined by his colleague Marcela Neves from Euclid Network who asks some more probing questions on the cross-cutting topic of youth. We talk in depth about the YEPA and the work of the European Commission on youth social entrepreneurship. Of course, the wider context is important and the work of other organisations such as the OECD is touched upon too. Given the challenges young people have faced and continue to face, this topic is definitely one that deserves some attention! No episode of the Social Economist would be complete without some podcast recommendations! Julien has one for our French speaking listeners by Franck Ferrand: Au Cœur de l'histoire. Marcela was also keen to share a suggestion for our English speaking listeners from the BBC: Lives Last Ordinary. Enjoying hearing the updates on social economy in Europe? Not sure what all these recent developments really mean? Get in touch with the podcast team by emailing ⁠[email protected]⁠ A special thanks to Jan Kiszowara at Euclid Network who produces this podcast. Our theme is 'another twelve' by Mikel Patrick Avery at Music For Podcasts.