The main aim of the project “Youth votes for Europe” is to enable young people to take an active part in the political and social life within the European society as well as to reinforce their participation in the democratic life in Europe. By conveying common European values, intercultural awareness and the feeling of belonging to the European community are expected to increase. The necessity to implement this aim, which was declared a constitutional objective of the Treaty of Lisbon, results from the current development of the European Union. Background of the project are the very different ideas of individual parties and states about the political and economic future of Europe. The project topic of the European elections provides a specific context which make an active examination of political ideas and alternatives for Europe possible for young people. More than one thousand 15- to 20-year-old students from Elk (Poland), Barga (Italy), Dublin (Ireland) and Halle (Germany) will not only discuss the election programmes of the parties running for the European Parliament in their schools and participate in the junior elections. According electoral procedures (voting age), many of them will also be able to vote directly in the European elections in 2019. Apart from the analysis of election programmes and the comparison with personal attitudes as well as opinions on development and values for Europe, the students will compare European and national legal regulations for electoral procedures with regard to the European elections. Further specific activities will be the preparation, implementation and evaluation of a junior election in the participating schools and the organisation of an International Day for Europe. Methodically, the focus will be on the autonomous development of empirical analysis tools such as questionnaires, interview guidelines, evaluation sheets, as well as the implementation of the tools, including computer-based evaluation, representation and discussion of results. In addition to the four meetings in the partner schools, modern information and communication technology such as e-Twinning will be used. The analysis tools for the acqusition and comparison of electoral procedures and election programmes and of moral concepts of young people developed in the project can be used beyond the project in the longer term. The same applies to the guidelines for the preparation, implementation and evaluation of junior elections and the organisation of an International Day for Europe. The extensive spread and use of the results and experiences of the project “Youth votes for Europe” will allow young people to participate in shaping the Euopean Union democratically with more skill and motivation.
The main aim of the project “Youth vote for Europe” was to enable young people to take an active part in the political and social life within the European society as well as to reinforce their participation in the democratic life in Europe. By conveying common European values, intercultural awareness and the feeling of belonging to the European community were expected to increase. The necessity to implement this aim, which was declared a constitutional objective of the Treaty of Lisbon, results from the current development of the European Union. Background of the project was the very different ideas of individual parties and states about the political and economic future of Europe. The project topic of the European elections provided a specific context which made an active examination of political ideas and alternatives for Europe possible for young people. More than one thousand 15- to 20-year-old students from Elk (Poland), Barga (Italy), Dublin (Ireland) and Halle (Germany) discussed the election programmes of the parties running for the European Parliament in their schools and participated in the junior elections. According to electoral procedures (voting age), many of them were already able to vote directly in the European elections in 2019. Apart from the analysis of election programmes and the comparison with personal attitudes as well as opinions on development and values for Europe, the students compared European and national legal regulations for electoral procedures with regard to the European elections. Further specific activities were the preparation, implementation and evaluation of a junior election in the participating schools and the organisation of an International Day for Europe. Methodically, the focus was on the autonomous development of empirical analysis tools such as questionnaires, interview guidelines, evaluation sheets, as well as the implementation of the tools, including computer-based evaluation, representation and discussion of results. In addition to the three meetings in the partner schools, modern information and communication technology such as e-Twinning and Twinspace was used. The fourth planned project meeting, which was supposed to take place in Barga, unfortunately had to be canceled due to Corona. The analysis tools for the acquisition and comparison of electoral procedures and election programmes and of moral concepts of young people developed in the project could be used beyond the project in the longer term. The same applied to the guidelines for the preparation, implementation and evaluation of junior elections and the organisation of an International Day for Europe. The extensive spread and use of the results and experiences of the project “Youth vote for Europe” will allow young people to participate in shaping the Euopean Union democratically with more skill and motivation.