Brussels, 21/04/2009 (Agence Europe) - A cycle tour of Europe will leave Brussels on Monday 27 April to encourage European citizens to take part in the European elections taking place from 4 to 7 June. With this "concrete political and symbolic action", the Belgian association" European Network Unification of Europe" (a member of the European Movement), which is behind the event, hopes to mobilise the population, civil society and the media to take part in European ballot. "The political dimension of this event consists of carrying out common actions with the four pro-European political groups [EPP, PES, ALDE and European Greens] in four countries and at a local level", said Ernst Piehl, a cycling enthusiast and coordinator of the European tour. The cyclists will travel 1800 km in 21 days through Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Poland (the last of these is expected to be the worst affected by abstention rates in June, according to the most recent Eurobarometer results), ending their journey on 17 May at the Polish border point of Gronowo, just by the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. "In some of the towns we will go through, the turnout rate in the 2004 European elections was no more than 20%!", said Ernst Piehl, a former European civil servant and long-standing member of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). At each of the planned stages in more than 25 European towns and cities, the cyclists will be met by the mayors and local candidates standing for the European elections in order to mobilise the local press and population. The tour will start on Monday 27 April between 9: 30 a.m. and 10 a.m. in front of the European Parliament in Brussels, at a ceremony to be attended by the Irish Liberal Pat Cox, former President of the EP and leader of the International European Movement (MEI), a high-level servant of the European Commission and the Secretary General of the Committee of the Regions (CoR), Germany's Gerhard Stahl. In order to get involved with this event or join the group of cyclists, please e-mail the coordinator (piehl@scarlet.be). (Y.P./transl.fl)