European Candidates Strive to Attract Young Voters

Only one of the young scholars was able to identify one of the leading three candidates in this week's elections. As the analysis confirmed, first-time voters are more detached than any other voter profile.

Ironically, young voters are the citizens most affected by current EU challenges. The youth unemployment rate spanning Europe is 23%, while the figure is over 50% in Greece. Premier electoral candidates are unsuccessfully trying to entice the younger generation to participate in voting.

As reported by Kathimerini, Socialist & Democrats candidate Martin Schulz described, "A whole generation in the European Union pays with their life chances for a crisis other people, irresponsible people, have caused".

Young Belgian government employee Bart Waegeman stated, "European politics doesn't matter much to me...Europe is a little too big". Student Sarah Boulanger who was the only survey taker to rightly determine one of the European Commission candidates, supported the same opinion, "It's not interesting for us. We vote for someone and then in the end it's not who we voted for that makes it".



EC candidates have turned to social media portals, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to attract young voters, in the same way U.S. President Barack Obama did during his 2008 presidential run. None of the candidates have substantially lured a solid amount of voters this way. They have also attempted to enter the "selfie" domain.

Brussel's Free University Political Science Professor 
Dimokritos Kavadias commented, "They will only reach the young people who were already interested".