The 2019 Shell Youth Study shows that almost half of all young people have a positive or very positive view of the EU. They have a positive perception of a “borderless” Europe, cultural diversity and commitment to values such as peace and democracy. They are critical of bureaucracy, crime and even a quarter of them think of the “loss of their own home culture”. In surveys conducted in the context of the 2024 European elections, young first-time voters articulated the feeling that, on the one hand, their problems were not being taken into account by “politics” and, on the other, that they could not grasp the EU as a construct so far removed from their own lives. The institutional structure of the EU and political debates are often difficult for young people to penetrate, creating a feeling of powerlessness. This is striking: The necessary (European) political education often falls by the wayside, particularly at chronically underfunded schools in rural areas and in socially weaker urban districts. Based on these circumstances, Understanding Europe Germany e.V. has developed a broad range of courses on critical European, climate, democracy and media education, which are available to schools free of charge. The educational concept is based on the peer approach, in that the courses are run by and for young people. We start with the basics in order to bring the European idea and awareness of a pluralistic European society with its own opportunities for participation into the field of vision of young people through participatory and low-barrier educational formats, to create initial points of contact, to decipher complex European policy and make it tangible and to stimulate critical discussions. Young people should be encouraged to participate in society through our project in order to experience that each individual can play an important role in a European, pluralistic, democratic society.