this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2024
100 points (96.3% liked)

Europe

1668 readers
354 users here now

News and information from Europe ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ

(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)

Rules (2024-08-30)

  1. This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
  2. No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
  3. Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
  4. No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism.
  5. Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
  6. If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
  7. Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in [email protected]. (They're cool, you should subscribe there too!)
  8. Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
  9. No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)

(This list may get expanded when necessary.)

We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.

If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.

If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the mods: @[email protected], @[email protected], or @[email protected].

founded 6 months ago
MODERATORS
 

The European Parliament is still in its summer recess until 1 September. The European Youth Forum has used the summer break to take a closer look at the young MEPs under the age of 35 in each country.

It is particularly remarkable that five countries did not elect any members under 35 to parliament, namely Belgium, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg and Romania.

Are you surprised that there are so few young MEPs in the European Parliament? How could the representation of young voices be improved?

Source: Youth Forum, as of August 2024

top 12 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[โ€“] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[โ€“] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago (1 children)

All current 27 EU members combined. Some statistics use EU-28 to keep the statistics compareable with pre Brexit numbers. However in this case that it does not make sense.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I see. The one who made that graphic could have been a bit more descriptive as all diagrams were based on country. Why the combined value amidst those? It's rather confusing.

But thanks for the explanation.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

For better or for worse, it's a pretty common way of doing it. Having it presented among the other countries in this graph makes it very quick to check if a country is better or worse than the EU average.

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[โ€“] copd 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Meh I wouldn't want anyone under 25 speaking in parliament. 35 is a good boundary to consider being "young" for such an elite political position

[โ€“] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

What makes old people better than young people for such a great "elite political position"? Deserve younger people no proper representation in parliament? And no, older people can't adequately represent young people, because they lived their youths long ago, under entirely different circumstances.

Also, if we have such an aggressive age cap towards lower ages, shouldn't we have an age cap towards higher ages, too? I am above that proposed age cap of yours, yet I am sick of being governed by a bunch of borderline senile geezers.

[โ€“] systemglitch -2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm okay with a cap on both ends. 40-60 would be my age range.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I am getting why you're arguing for a cap at the low end, but with present day full-time career politicians, 40 year old career politicians don't really have any more real life experience than 22 years old career politicians, because all they have ever done for a living was being a career politician.