On Thursday 3 May at the European House of History, Viviane Reding MEP (EPP, Luxembourg) launched a “European Youth Marathon” operation to mobilise young people in the perspective of the 2019 European elections.
This new initiative will consist of organising awareness meetings about European challenges during sporting events, including marathons, in a number of European cities in 2019.
Operations will be launched in Athens and coordinated from Frankfurt through the My Europe 2100 organisation, an NGO set up in 2011 by Ms Reding and Dr Manfred Pohl.
The former European Commission Vice President justified her action by way of an alarming observation involving the level of young people's political participation. She said that she was “shocked” that only 28% of them voted in the last European elections and that “young people” was the age category that had given most support to Marine Le Pen in France.
Ms Reding highlighted the need to develop a long-term perspective- “We need a marathon rather than sprint to save Europe from young people's lack of interest and populist temptations”. Addressing an audience of young people in Brussels, she hammered home the message that “You can be for or against but you need to take part!”
The MEP set out two precise objectives: obtaining a 50% youth voter turnout in 2019 and reducing the populist vote. (Original version in French by Mathieu Solal, trainee)