European Union

Young and first time voters question Austrian top candidates

7 May , 2019  

Vienna, 7 Mai 2019: Election-Watch.EU (wahlbeobachtung.org) in cooperation with the European Parliament (EP) organized a panel discussion of Austrian top EP candidates with pupils and trainees on the European elections in the House of the EU in Vienna on 7 May.

More than 150  pupils and trainees of five different schools from four provinces used the opportunity to a direct exchange with top candidates and to addressed their questions to them. The politicians answered questions about the environment, migration, Article 13/17, legalisation of soft drugs, etc.  and had several intense controversies among themselves on specific topics. The event provided an opportunity to broaden personal knowledge of the European Union and increase motivation to participate in the European elections as the European Parliament is the only directly democratically elected EU body.

Who:

Dr. Othmar Karas (ÖVP), Head of the Peoples Party (ÖVP) Delegation to the EP, Lead Candidate, #1 on the list

Robert Lugar (FPÖ), FPÖ Member of the National Council (Cancellation by FPÖ General Secretary Harald Vilimsky the evening before the event)

Evelyn Regner (SPÖ), Head of the SPÖ Delegation to the EP, #2 on the list

Karin Feldinger (NEOS), # 2 on the list

Dr. Johannes Voggenhuber (Initiative 1Europa),  Spitzenkandidat & Listenplatz 1

David Stögmüller (Greens), Member of the Federal Council

Moderation: Irene Brickner (derstandard.at)

The event was organized in cooperation with the liaison office of the European Parliament and prepared by Election-Watch.EU – wahlbeobachtung.org through workshops at schools in the federal states – see example Burgenland. The preparation of the event was partly sponsored by Zukunftsfonds der Republik Österreich and takes place in the context of the Action Days for Political Education (Aktionstage für politische Bildung) of the Ministry for Education, Science and Research, together with and Center Polis.

The event was covered by the following media:

Radio: ORF Ö1 Mittagsjournal

TV: ORF ZIB 13.00 o’clock

Newspaper reportage:

“Schüler konfrontierten EU-Kandidaten” Der Standard 9. Mai 2019

Media partner:

Newspaper Der Standard Articel 9 May 2019

Newspaper Der Standard Announcement 2 May 2019

The event was also video taped and shared as short video content via social media   (click)

Eleciton-Watch.EU – wahlbeobachtung.org also shared content via other social media channels:

www.facebook.com/wahlbeobachtung.org

www.instagram.com/wahlbeobachtung

For these and other information offers for first-time voters and for schools for the European elections 2019 of the European Parliament – Liaison Office in Austria: see Link.

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