The European Union loves its young people. It has vastly increased the number of beneficiaries of the Erasmus programme, given them free tickets to visit Europe by train (see EUROPE 13393/36), listened to what young people had to say at the Conference on the Future of Europe, arranged a European Year of Youth, admittedly in some haste (2022). The Commission continues to host structured dialogue with organisations representing young people. There’s even a European Union strategy for youth, to run between 2019 and 2027.
More recently, an EU Conference on Youth was held in Ghent from the 2nd to the 5th of March, where the competent ministers discussed such matters as youth involvement in Commission initiatives and embedding policies for young people in other areas, in what is known as the ‘youth impact clause’ (see EUROPE 13408/1). Calls for such an initiative date back to 2022, but there is still little concrete implementation of it in evidence.
The involvement of young people in democratic life is a recurrent item on the wish lists of both the European Union and the Council of Europe. Although young people constitute a demographic of people who are more than willing to roll up their sleeves for the specific causes they believe in, they are less enamoured of the practices of political parties. In the 22 countries in which voting is not compulsory, there is considerable temptation not to bother, fuelled by the scepticism generated by government policy or the behaviour of individual leaders. According to the latest Eurobarometer survey of the European Parliament, which was published on 17 April, young people are less motivated than older ones to turn out to vote in June for the next members of this institution, even though they are theoretically pro-European, moreover to a greater degree than the population average.
Some young people take part in panels or mock sessions of the European Parliament and this is great. This does not, however, take away from the fact that the best way to ensure effective political participation is to stand for election or, at the very least, to exercise one’s right to vote on the strength of prior research. With the European elections just around the corner, before we can even attempt to predict the turnout rate of Europe’s young people, it would be worthwhile to know which of them may vote and who is eligible for election.
The European Youth Forum has long repeated its calls for the right to vote in the European elections to be lowered to 16. In the elections of 2019, only Austria had authorised this. For the elections of this June, this right has also been extended to the young people of Germany, Belgium and Malta. That gives a total of four member states out of 27. If the number of countries allowing 16-year-olds to vote were to increase by three every five years, it would take until 2064 for voting at 16 to be a matter of statute in all 27 member states, which is far from impressive, particularly considering that the word from the top suggests that the EU will have become significantly larger by then.
For now, then, let us say only that it is good news that Germany, the member state with the highest population, has come on board and that of the other four, Belgium practices compulsory voting. These two elements carry the promise of an increase in young people’s electoral participation in numerical terms. Let us also observe that Greece has lowered the minimum age to 17, from 18 previously. In all other countries, the lower age limit of 18 remains, despite debates on the subject that have been held, most notably in Italy and France. In the latter country, we might also note that when young people condescend to cast it, the youth vote tends to go in anti-government directions…
How old do you have to be to stand in the European elections? The situation has changed very little. In the majority of member states (16 at the moment, compared to 14 in 2019), the cursor is set at 18 years of age. It rises to 21 in eight countries (down from 10 in 2019), all of which are located in central and eastern Europe, apart from Ireland. In the bottom three countries on the list, nothing has changed since the last European elections: you have to be 23 in Romania and 25 in Italy and Greece. The only explanation is that the authorities of these countries have some fairly unfavourable views on the ability of the young people to exercise a political mandate, or maybe they are just worried… To put it into perspective, a young Frenchman could stand for election at the age of 18, while his Italian girlfriend would have to wait another seven years. Does it take longer for brains to develop in Italy than it does in France? The fact remains that this general situation offers an excellent example of discrimination on the basis of age and nationality.
Once more, then, we are obliged to turn to article 2 TEU, which proclaims the values of the EU (including those of equality and non-discrimination), hammered home by article 9: “in all its activities, the Union shall observe the principle of the equality of all its citizens (…)”. Any young person reading that would think, “are you having a laugh, or what?” Conclusion: maybe the European Union doesn’t love its young people all that much.
Neither the European Parliament nor the Commission have powers to set a uniform age for people to vote or stand in elections. During the term in office that is drawing to a close, the Council of the EU might well have had the stroke of inspiration to initiate a debate on possible convergence on these matters, to put an end to the absurdity of the current situation. It chose not to do so, as if wishing to confirm once again that the European elections are nothing more than a set of national elections all being held at the same time.
In the next term of office, it might be a good idea to breathe new life into the notion of European citizenship; as part of the same exercise, it could be enriched by harmonising political rights. This citizenship remains far too overlooked and far too little celebrated in the current debate. In every country where young people can vote from the age of 16, the functioning of the European Union will finally be discussed as part of secondary education. But every other country is gestating a politically sacrificed generation.
We have entered an age of collective disaffection with representative democracy, in a part of the world in which it is a long-held tradition. Parties of hate and nationalistic instincts, supported by anti-democratic forces, are everywhere on the rise. Democracy can be defended by parrying cyber-attacks, but it is far more beneficial to give the new generation a taste for it, by allowing them to have a political say, more and sooner: this is exactly what they demand.
Renaud Denuit