Young people want more EU not less and greater say
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According to the TUI Foundation’s European Youth Study climate issues are key among the youths in the European Union, and overall young people prefer more EU than less.
Many young people value the European Union, but they want to have more of a say in how it is run especially on topics that are particularly important to them.
Elke Hlawatschek, the managing director of the TUI Foundation, reacting to the reports findings said that the Europe generation is demanding to be listened to more, and to have more of a voice.
Nonetheless, only one in two EU citizens aged 16-26 consider the elections for the European Parliament important, and only one in five respondents feel that the bloc’s legislature genuinely represents them – the average age of the members of the European Parliament is 56. The youngest legislator is a 30-year-old Bulgarian.
Although respondents cited “asylum and migration” as the most important issues currently facing the European Union, that does not mean they reject nominally open borders within the bloc. 43% of the respondents who named asylum and migration as their most important issues also consider open borders within the European Union an opportunity; only 27% see them as a threat.
Freedom of movement within the EU was overwhelmingly evaluated as a positive thing — as far as young voters are concerned, it’s non-negotiable.
Environmental and climate protection are also very important to young Europeans. In the TUI survey, 28% of respondents indicated that they had rejected certain products for political or ethical reasons in the past year, or had selected others for precisely those reasons.
A worrying result from the survey is that only slightly more than half of young people (58%) are convinced that democracy is the best form of government. Its approval ratings are especially low in France (38%), Italy, and Poland (both 46%). At the other end of the scale, support for democracy is especially pronounced in Greece (73%), Germany, and Sweden (both 66%), and Denmark (65%). However, only a minority (6%) of young people consider a form of government other than democracy to be better.
