Engaging Young People and Women in European Parliament Elections International IDEA Discussion Paper 3/2019 Engaging Young People and Women in European Parliament Elections International IDEA Discussion Paper 3/2019 Cristina Ares © 2019 International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance This paper is independent of specific national or political interests. Views expressed in this paper do not necessarily represent the views of International IDEA, its Board or its Council members. References to the names of countries and regions in this publication do not represent the official position of International IDEA with regard to the legal status or policy of the entities mentioned. The electronic version of this publication is available under a Creative Commons Attribute-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) licence. You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the publication as well as to remix and adapt it, provided it is only for non-commercial purposes, that you appropriately attribute the publication, and that you distribute it under an identical licence. For more information on this licence visit the Creative Commons website: <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/>. International IDEA Strömsborg SE–103 34 Stockholm Sweden Telephone: +46 8 698 37 00 Email: [email protected] Website: <http://www.idea.int> Design and layout: International IDEA DOI: <https://doi.org/10.31752/idea.2019.16> Created with Booktype: <https://www.booktype.pro> International IDEA Contents Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... 5 Abbreviations ................................................................................................................................ 6 Executive summary ....................................................................................................................... 9 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 12 2. Voter absenteeism by young people and women ............................................................... 13 3. Under-representation of young people and women in the European Parliament ............ 20 4. Are parties aware of the interests of young people and women? ...................................... 25 5. What do we know about how to foster electoral participation? ......................................... 29 6. What else can be done to obtain a more inclusive EU electoral democracy? .................. 33 7. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 41 References ................................................................................................................................... 43 Further material ........................................................................................................................... 48 Annex A. General topics covered in the semi-structured interviews and questionnaires ... 52 Annex B. National parties and political groups in the European Parliament (2014–2019) . 53 Annex C. Programmatic statements by the Europarties on women and gender equality .... 67 About the author ......................................................................................................................... 70 About International IDEA ............................................................................................................ 71 Acknowledgements Acknowledgements This paper provides an outline of the level of inclusion of young people and women in European electoral democracy. It was compiled over a short period of time at the end of 2018 to collect relevant data that could be useful for the 2019 European Parliament elections. The author would like to express her gratitude to the Office of International IDEA to the European Union for its full support, to all the interviewees for their time and contributions, and to Professor Hermann Schmitt and the entire team of the Euromanifesto Project for the provision of the original files of the manifestos that were issued by the Europarties and the national parties in preparation for the 2014 European Parliament elections. I am also grateful to my colleagues Dr Luis Bouza (Autonomous University of Madrid) and Dr Tomaž Deželan (University of Ljubljana) for their collaboration. Finally, I am indebted to the Directorate-General for Internal Policies of the EU and the Directorate- General for Parliamentary Research Services of the European Parliament, the Youth Policy Division of the Council of Europe and the European Institute for Gender Equality for the raw data and publications they have provided. International IDEA 5 Engaging Young People and Women in European Parliament Elections Abbreviations ACRE Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe AEGEE European Students’ Forum ALDA European Association for Local Democracy ALDE Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe AT Austria BE Belgium BG Bulgaria CY Cyprus CZ Czechia DE Germany DK Denmark EAF European Alliance for Freedom ECR European Conservatives and Reformists EDP European Democratic Party EE Estonia EES European Election Studies EFA European Free Alliance 6 International IDEA Abbreviations EFAy European Free Alliance Youth EFDD Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy EGP European Green Party EIGE European Institute for Gender Equality EL Greece ENF Europe of Nations and Freedom EPP European People’s Party ES Spain ESU European Student’s Union EU European Union EYC European Young Conservatives EYF European Youth Forum FI Finland FR France FYEG Federation of Young European Greens Greens/EFA The Greens/European Free Alliance GUE/NGL European United Left/Nordic Green Left HR Croatia HU Hungary IE Ireland IT Italy IYDU International Young Democrat Union LT Lithuania LU Luxembourg LV Latvia International IDEA 7 Engaging Young People and Women in European Parliament Elections LYMEC European Liberal Youth MENF Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedom MEPs Members of the European Parliament MT Malta NGOs non-governmental organizations NL Netherlands PEL Party of the European Left PES Party of European Socialists PL Poland PPS Percentage points PT Portugal RO Romania S&D Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats SE Sweden SK Slovakia SL Slovenia YEPP Youth of the European People’s Party YES Young European Socialists YFJ European Youth Forum 8 International IDEA Executive summary Executive summary This paper is focused on two pitfalls of electoral democracy in the European Union: voter absenteeism by young people, and the under-representation of women in the European Parliament. In the 2014 elections, the average rate of voter absenteeism was 72.2 per cent for the younger age group (16–24 years). Moreover, in 14 member states, the voter turnout by young people was less than 25 per cent. The gap of electoral participation between the older (55 years and over) and the younger age groups exceeded 20 percentage points in 16 out of the 28 member states, with the average EU age gap being 23.5 percentage points. In Ireland, it was 54.5 percentage points. Only in Sweden and Belgium (voting is compulsory in the latter country) were the younger citizens more participative than the older ones. The percentage of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who are women has improved over time. In 1979, the figure was only 16.5 per cent, while the eighth legislature (2014–2019) has reached levels of 37 per cent. However, not only has this positive trend slowed (the increase in the number of female MEPs between 2009 and 2014 was just 2 percentage points) but in 2014 it was lower than in the previous European Parliament elections (in 2009) in 15 out of the 28 member states, including countries such as Belgium, Denmark and Finland. It is also worth noting that the gender imbalance within the European Parliament varies from group to group. Indeed, it no longer exists in the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (50/50) and is also practically non-existent in the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (54.45/45.55), while in European Conservatives and Reformists, women MEPs represent just 21.43 per cent of the total composition. Europe of Nations and Freedom and the European People’s Party are also below the average (36.89 per cent). With the purpose of enriching and making EU electoral democracy stronger, this paper presents as food for thought some evidence on key elements to foster participation in European Parliament elections, as well as to reach a more balanced composition of the European Parliament in terms of age and gender. From the point of view of the author, there are three main lines of improvement: (a) national electoral rules may need to be modified to both facilitate the process of voting and provide for a more diverse composition of the European Parliament; (b) as the main actors in the European Parliament elections, national parties should make an effort to Europeanize these elections, emphasizing those issues that are particularly important to young people and women, and promoting them as candidates; (c) European-wide political parties (known as Europarties), which continue to have a marginal role in the elections to the European Parliament, could act as game-changers under the Spitzenkandidaten system, and promote awareness and civic training on matters related to the EU. International IDEA 9 Engaging Young