Amsterdam: experience the first-ever walking movie
You can watch it over and over since it will be available for the next six months
Belgium will now join a small club of countries empowering youth political participation – Austria, Greece and Malta
Last week, the Belgian Parliament introduced a law that will lower the voting age in European elections to 16. The move is part of meeting the 325 demands of the ‘Conference for the Future of Europe’, signed early last year by all 27 Member States.
Importantly, implementing the decisions made during the conference depends on the legislative process in the individual Member States.
Now, Belgium joins a rather exclusive club of countries, that features only Greece, Malta and Austria, as countries that have already expanded voting rights to minors. Thus, in two years, the country will have hundreds of thousands of first-time voters, as the ruling applies to all EU citizens living in Belgium, as well as to Belgians living abroad.
In Belgium, the policy proposition was first introduced in the national parliament by Minister of the Interior Annelies Verlinden and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sophie Wilmès back in October 2021.
After deliberating on the text, parliament has finally passed the law, giving 16 and 17-year-olds the right to vote in the 2024 elections. The issue of giving voting rights to minors was also part of the 2020 coalition agreement by the incumbent seven-party ruling government.
In practice, this means that an additional 270,000 Belgians and other EU citizens, as well as 13,000 Belgians living abroad, aged 16 and 17 will have the chance to cast their vote in the 2024 EU election for the first time in their lives. Considering all the people who would have reached the age of 18 since the last EU election in 2019, 2024 could possibly be the year when youth issues dominate the ballot box.
Minister Annelies Verlinden was quoted in a press release, saying: “By giving young people the opportunity to actively participate in our democracy, they can make their voices heard and we further stimulate their involvement in politics. The young are the future, and they will now be able to help determine that future."
Vasco Alves Cordeiro comes from the Azores archipelago of Portugal, and is thus the first CoR President from that country and from an outermost region
You can watch it over and over since it will be available for the next six months
The FAST-CARE package comes at a time of growing needs and concerns and in the context of the ongoing war in the European neighbourhood
Abandoned fishing gear is one of the most dangerous threats to the marine environment, but also to divers and underwater heritage
The town of Makarska has recently launched a new mobile service, aiming to cut down on paper use and stimulate citizens to go contactless
The invention promises to be revolutionary as it can decouple food production from agriculture and its environmental impacts
It turns out spraying water would be extremely impracticable and wasteful due to fast evaporation
The art initiative was begun by the city's mayor, who wants to expose people that try to save on transportation costs by illegally disposing of old furniture or construction materials
This is one of the ambitious goals from the new agreement details for the “Fit for 55” package
You can watch it over and over since it will be available for the next six months
The FAST-CARE package comes at a time of growing needs and concerns and in the context of the ongoing war in the European neighbourhood
Trenitalia has announced that it wants to reduce the phenomenon of domestic animals being left behind alone while their owners go on holidays
These will be spread across 11 EU countries and will serve to support the EU Missions
The European Commission has accepted to develop the idea
An interview about AYR, one of the 2021 New European Bauhaus Prize winners
A conversation with the Mayor of Matosinhos, Portugal’s first UN Resilience Hub
An interview with Nigel Jollands and Sue Goeransson from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
An interview with the President of the City of Athens Reception & Solidarity Centre