How to tackle the disinterest of political surroundings amongst youth?

Young people are worried about the future and are concerned about those who represent them. If we want to be honest with ourselves, politicians are not always listening to the real concerns of people and sometimes they seem to not understand that politics is not a game. Certainly, in many aspects politicians need to better themselves but at the same time young people walking away is definitely not the answer. I recently came across a study of the European Youth Forum saying that 72 per cent of 16/18 to 24 years old did not vote in the 2014 European elections, while more than 50 per cent of 65+ olds did. Such figures are unacceptable. If young people want politics to change Europe and the society they live in, then they must also be willing to participate.

Youth abstaining from politics is highly problematic as young people have different perspectives and lot of different ideas which can move the political world forward and avoid generation gap issues. If we want to resolve this problem at the core of our democracies, we need to take urgent and efficient action.

Approximately 30 per cent of Europeans are below the age of 30. This age group should be adequately represented in national and European Parliaments which is not the case today. We are not talking about the need of teenage politicians but the point here is to encourage young adults to take a more effective role in politics. In many countries, laws stipulate an eligibility age to run for parliament which creates a gap between the legal age of voting age, on the one hand, and the age at which an individual can serve in elected office. Also, although youth quotas are used as a means to elect more young MPs, certain countries have pushed the boundaries of the concept of “young” to be defined as less than 45 years old. Therefore, in order for quotas to really serve the purpose of engaging the youth in politics, then we should introduce quotas for young people of maximum 35 years of age.

Another way- we are currently witnessing the digital revolution, it is time to embrace e-voting to encourage higher turnouts. There are researches indicating that young people were more than half as likely to turn out for an online ballot than vote at a polling station. Also people who vote online are more likely to hesitate on what to vote.

Finally, I do have my hesitations on that but definitely more research needs to be done in relation to lowering the voting age to 16. Lowering the voting age in conjunction with a proper political and civic education at schools can instill a habit of voting in young people and encourage them to become involved with decision-making.

We should not forget the role of education in all aspects of our lives and that includes the youth engagement in democratic life. An idea would be to make political education compulsory at a very young age. That would entail that pupils come across hopeful role models, learn more about their political history and government structures and most importantly learn the importance of being an active citizen.

Nevertheless, we should not put all the youth in the same basket. There are young people in our society who volunteer and dedicate their lives to serving political parties, governments, civil organisations or other non-for profit organisations involved in politics. What is really true, is that many young people have developed a dislike for politics while they should play a much more important role in politics and in everyday life.