VIENNA—Finland used the opening day of the OSCE Ministerial Council (4 December 2025) to unveil a new Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) Roadmap that will serve as a common reference document for the 57 OSCE participating states for the next decade. Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, who holds the rotating Chairperson-in-Office for 2025, described the Roadmap as “a practical tool box” for governments, civil-society groups and multilateral agencies that want to involve young people more systematically in conflict-prevention and democratic decision-making.
Although the 29-page document is not legally binding, it catalogues existing OSCE commitments and sets out voluntary actions—ranging from visa-facilitation for youth exchanges to funding schemes that allow student, trainee and early-career professionals to move more easily across borders for peace-building projects. The plan explicitly encourages governments to “remove administrative and financial barriers that limit the mobility of youth peace builders,” signalling a fresh push for streamlined short-term entry visas and recognition of non-formal learning when granting residence permits.
![Finland launches OSCE-wide Youth, Peace & Security Roadmap to boost cross-border inclusion]()
For Finland, the initiative is a flagship deliverable in a chairpersonship that has stressed inclusion. Helsinki sees freer movement for students, researchers and civil-society actors as a soft-power counterweight to growing geopolitical tension on the EU’s eastern flank. The Roadmap dovetails with Finland’s own domestic priorities: earlier this year the government earmarked €10 million for outbound exchange grants and inbound mobility scholarships aimed at young professionals from the Western Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Business-mobility specialists say the YPS Roadmap could translate into lighter red-tape for companies that sponsor interns and trainees on multilateral programmes. “If states follow through, we would expect new fast-track visa lanes modelled on the EU’s ‘Schengen traineeship’ permit, but extended to non-EU OSCE members,” notes Tuuli Hirvonen of Global Mobility Nordic Consulting. That could benefit Finnish engineering and gaming firms that draw heavily on early-career talent from Ukraine, Georgia and Serbia.
Next steps include a monitoring mechanism: Finland has asked the OSCE Secretariat to issue an annual ‘mobility scoreboard’ showing how far each state has advanced on youth-visa facilitation, mutual recognition of qualifications and provision of seed grants for cross-border projects. The first progress report is due in late 2026, when Sweden will chair the organisation.
Although the 29-page document is not legally binding, it catalogues existing OSCE commitments and sets out voluntary actions—ranging from visa-facilitation for youth exchanges to funding schemes that allow student, trainee and early-career professionals to move more easily across borders for peace-building projects. The plan explicitly encourages governments to “remove administrative and financial barriers that limit the mobility of youth peace builders,” signalling a fresh push for streamlined short-term entry visas and recognition of non-formal learning when granting residence permits.
For Finland, the initiative is a flagship deliverable in a chairpersonship that has stressed inclusion. Helsinki sees freer movement for students, researchers and civil-society actors as a soft-power counterweight to growing geopolitical tension on the EU’s eastern flank. The Roadmap dovetails with Finland’s own domestic priorities: earlier this year the government earmarked €10 million for outbound exchange grants and inbound mobility scholarships aimed at young professionals from the Western Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Business-mobility specialists say the YPS Roadmap could translate into lighter red-tape for companies that sponsor interns and trainees on multilateral programmes. “If states follow through, we would expect new fast-track visa lanes modelled on the EU’s ‘Schengen traineeship’ permit, but extended to non-EU OSCE members,” notes Tuuli Hirvonen of Global Mobility Nordic Consulting. That could benefit Finnish engineering and gaming firms that draw heavily on early-career talent from Ukraine, Georgia and Serbia.
Next steps include a monitoring mechanism: Finland has asked the OSCE Secretariat to issue an annual ‘mobility scoreboard’ showing how far each state has advanced on youth-visa facilitation, mutual recognition of qualifications and provision of seed grants for cross-border projects. The first progress report is due in late 2026, when Sweden will chair the organisation.
