In this of all years, voting matters across the world. On our doorstep, citizens in the EU are going to the polls to elect the European Parliament in June. But only in Belgium, Germany, Malta and Austria is the voting age 16 for Euro elections: in the other 23 member states, it is 18. In a few, voting is mandatory, in one – online; but all want democracy to be relevant to the young electorate. All want the young to participate, to be more than smartphone pundits, and to shape the future.
These voting discrepancies therefore jar with the EU’s ambitions for getting young people involved. But national governments still choose to disempower young people electorally while nevertheless deeming them old enough at 16 to be conscripted or join up. Some consider ‘children’ and ‘minors’ to be capable of understanding that they have committed an anti-social or criminal act subject to prosecution by the state’s authorities while still insisting that they lack sufficient maturity to participate in processes to elect a country’s government and parliamentary representatives.
Children and civic life
Most governments and parties in Europe subscribe to programmes and international conventions purporting to support children’s participation in civic life as a preparation to participating in the political running of the country in which they live, and some introduce participatory democratic practices from kindergarten up.
While electoral age eligibility criteria deviate for Euro elections, discrepancies also show up in international forums. For example, the United Nations defines ‘youth’” as people aged 15-24. Under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a child is anyone under 18. Article 12 of that Convention states that children who are able to express their own views have a right “to be heard” on matters affecting them. Realising children’s political rights is more complicated. However, efforts are being made to make politics accessible to the young.
What Europe does
The EU Commission has a child’s access point on its webpage. In March 2021, it adopted the EU Strategy on the right of the child, committing to child participation in EU political and democratic life and aiming to facilitate children’s/minors’ participation in age-appropriate ways. Accordingly, the Commission and European Parliament support the idea of citizenship education, including election simulations, and guides to familiarise children and teenagers with electoral registration and voting processes, as well as with underlying EU values and history. The funding it offers for children’s wellbeing projects requires their involvement in every stage of a project’s design, implementation and evaluation.
Together with the European Parliament and children’s rights bodies, the EU Commission committed to setting upthe EU Children’s Participation Platform anddevelop an inclusive and child-friendly format of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, other key EU instruments relevant to children, and related documents and events. Young people are invited to become Pact Ambassadors for theEuropean Climate Pact.
The European Youth Forum is the advocacy platform of youth organisations in Europe wanting to foster dialogue with EU decision-makers to give effect to the EU youth strategy 2019-2027 and accelerate action on young people’s demands raised during the European Year of Youth in 2022. One ongoing way is through the European Youth Portal. It offers info on EU and national-level opportunities and initiatives for young people across the EU, including implementing the European Youth Dialogue (EUYD) for 2019-2027. The aim is to get governments cooperating with the young through the “connect, engage and empower” strategy. All well and good providing such initiatives are socially inclusive, meaningful, empowering and engaging.
That may mean enhancing and moving beyond programmes that model existing structures in society, like the albeit valuable European Youth Parliament which brings young people from diverse backgrounds to debate political issues together. In February 2024, it focused on climate change in its Have Your Say! Young Citizens’ Dialogue on Climate and Energy Policy event.
Democracy for kids
Similarly, the Euroscola programme enables 16-18 year olds to be an MEP for a day at the European Parliament in Strasbourg where annually students debate actual legislative proposals drafted by the European Commission.
Where younger children are concerned, digital life presents particular challenges. The European strategy for a better internet for kids seeks to protect and engage them in drafting an EU code of conduct. The European Parliament’s Coordinator on Children’s Rights and the EU Children’s Participation Platform’s 2023-2024 work plan focuses on: feeling safe; democracy and voting; website co-creation; and “past, present and future”. Work continues.
The EU has many schemes to make policies more accessible to young people, plus action to combat hostile disinformation. As Euro election campaigning accelerates, the one unifying example of how corrosive disinformation is for democratic life that continues to be held up as a warning is Brexit.
A shared challenge?
The big challenge for the EU and the UK is building sufficient awareness and understanding of the purpose of government and the place of democratic participation in shaping the kind of society and policies we want. Could the EU’s innovation to bringing citizens into deliberative democracy be a model for the UK? Its Conference on the Future of Europe (in April 2021 and May 2022) reserved 30% of places on citizen panels for 16-25 years olds.
Perhaps the UK will learn from the Euro elections and move to respect the voices of the young and its citizens as it prepares for the next general election and reinventing a more relevant democracy for all of us after it.
