European elections, two million minors go to the polls: in five countries it is possible, in Italy not yet

Almost two million European teenagers aged 16-17 are preparing to exercise their right to vote for the first time in the next EU elections in June. In Austria, Belgium, Germany, Malta and Greece the respective governments also recognise the vote for those under the age of 18. Nothing to do, however, for Italian 16- and 17-year-olds, who will have to wait until they reach the age of majority for the right to vote.

The debate on voting for 16-year-olds is however not new in Italy, the last to propose such a reform was in fact the then secretary of the PD, Enrico Letta , in 2021. The idea was taken up by the founder of the 5 Star Movement, Beppe Grillo, who in mid-March in his blog pointed out that 'the vote at 16 already exists in many states and now the time has come to listen to the new generations, extending the right to vote to 16-year-olds in Italy'.

Germany and Belgium are the latest additions to the club of young voters. For the more than 1.5 million German 16- and 17-year-olds (far more than the population of a small EU country) and the 270,000 Belgians, their vote in the European elections will be a first in the history of their countries. For the Belgians, moreover, it will not only be a possibility, but a duty. The Federal Constitutional Court has ruled that the voting obligation, which exists in the country for adults, must also be extended to underage voters.

A special case, however, is Greece, where the threshold is that of seventeen, and expands the Greek electoral pool by several tens of thousands of voters.

The objective of the Eurochamber is to maximise the participation of the younger generation in the vote. The previous European elections in fact showed a relatively low youth turnout, 42% among the under-25s, a figure, however, up 14 percentage points compared to the previous round. "For Parliament, the youth vote is a priority, for many reasons. The first is that these are probably the elections that will shape the future of the new generations. What will happen at European level will probably have a greater and more lasting impact on young people than national decisions taken in the short term," is the comment of Jaume Duch Guillot, spokesman for the European Parliament.