Your choice, Your voice

On 22-25 May 2014, people in 28 countries across Europe will get the chance to vote for their new Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who will represent them in European Union decision making. 

We at Young Friends of the Earth Europe believe that young people should be empowered to take action and make our voice heard locally, nationally and throughout Europe. Youth participation in any election process does impact the outcome, and with our new EP campaign Your choice, Your voice we are urging you to make an informed decision before deciding whether to vote and who to vote for in the upcoming European Parliament elections.

Why the European Parliament elections?

We have put together a number of resources that will help you and others in your country understand what the European Parliament elections are, and how and why you can get involved.  We have created the Your choice, Your voice cartoon below that we hope helps explains some basic information about the European Parliament elections and what it has to do with you.
Please share the cartoon on your website, blog, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media to get more young people in your country informed!

This EP elections briefing, created by Friends of the Earth Europe, explains more what MEPs do, what powers they have, how the European Parliament works, and why anyone who cares about the local, national and global environment would be interested in these elections.

Get involved!

• Spread the Your Choice, Your voice cartoon, and inform others about the European Parliament and elections.
  

• Spread our demands to new MEP candidates
  As Young Friends of the Earth Europe, we stand for a future world based on principles of environmental and social justice. We have put together our expectations and demands from the next European Parliament, voicing the urgently needed shift in policies in order to meet lobby transparency, climate justice, and fair and healthy food system. We’re asking you to read our demands and our open letter and share it widely among your network!

• Write to your MEP candidates
  We are asking YFoE groups from across Europe to use the open letter and help send it to as many MEP candidates as possible. If you can, please translate the letter to your own language and ask the MEP candidates from your country to support it.
  We can give you a word document of the letter, plus the contact details of all MEP candidates in your country, so that you can send the letter by post or by email. Please contact Simona for support on this. You need to do this before the voting starts on 22nd May.

• Create your own demands
  We want to support local and national groups from the network in their struggles and help their voices be heard on a European level. We are creating a video that will unify short video demands by individuals and/or groups from different European countries and regions, stating their own demands of the newly elected Members of the European Parliament. Record your own short video answering the question: ‘What would you request from your MEP if they were now standing in front of you?‘ and send it to us. We will then put all of the collected videos together and release the video in early September! Contact Simona if you want to get involved.

Find out more

We are supporting two other initiatives to have a positive effect on the outcomes of the upcoming European Parliament elections.

ScoreEP
Friends of the Earth Europe and Sandbad have put together a tool to find out how politicians in Brussels voted on issues that affect Europe’s future, particularly issues around climate change, fracking, and GMO. ScoreEP puts a number, out of 100, on your representative’s support or opposition to these issues. Score your MEPs here!

Politics for People
Big corporations and banks spend hundreds of millions of euros every year to ensure that European policy-making meets their needs – and it works. Meanwhile people like us lose out. ALTER-EU is loud and clear with the Politics for People campaign: You can change this situation! Get MEP candidates to pledge to stand-up for democracy and Europe’s citizens.

Tell us more!

Your national group has its own campaign focused on the European Parliament elections? Tell us all about it, we would be happy to share your activities on our website!