By 1980 the platform had added members from Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg and West Germany and throughout the next decade expanded its membership across Europe.

The same year, representatives from the USSR, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and DDR joined an OBESSU conference in Strasbourg with the aim to establish a more stable contact between the national school student unions in Eastern and Western Europe.

On 7 December 2011, OBESSU was awarded the 3rd Civil Society Prize[6] during the plenary session of the European Economic and Social Committee for the ‘Light on the Rights’ Bus Tour project.

The General Assembly meets annually and have authority over the statutes, the political platform and the workplan, as well as electing the Board of OBESSU, the highest decision making body between the GA and Council of Members.

A substantial portion of the preparatory work is conducted at the secretariat, alongside ongoing lobbying efforts directed at European institutions.