EU election: Germany’s youth wield their political power

In an era where students take to the streets every Friday to protest against climate change, young voters have precipitated a seismic shift in German politics.

Sunday’s European Parliament elections saw the Green Party catapulted to second place in the German vote for the first time ever in a nationwide poll. 

Tallying 20.5%, the Greens almost doubled their last European election count. Among younger voters, that figure was even higher. According to polling group Forschungsgruppe Wahl, 33% of under-30s voted Green.

The overall result delivered a blow to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat bloc (CDU/CSU) and their junior coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD). Just 13% of the electorate in that age group cast their vote for the CDU, with 10% opting for the SPD.

That divide was mirrored by almost exactly the opposite among voters over 60, pointing to a widening generational gap.

Read more: German EU election results ramp up pressure on Merkel’s coalition

Policy for the future

Fielding younger candidates, like Ska Keller, may have appealed to younger voters, but the substantial differences were to be found in policy.

“The old parties haven’t really been doing politics for young people for years and the young people are really frustrated about it,” said Matthias Rohrer, a researcher and project coordinator at the Institute for Youth Cultural Research in Hamburg.

“The Greens are the only party at the moment which is doing a kind of politics for young people that looks to the future,” he told DW.

Students have led the way on environmental debate with the recent Fridays for Future climate strikes and many feel disaffected by what they see as inertia from the status quo parties.

“The EUVote19 shows we are not only taking the climate crisis to the streets but also the polling stations,” prominent German activist Luisa Neubauer tweeted. “That should give everyone who smirked, shoulder-to-shoulder, at ‘youth engagement’ in recent months something to think about.”

Read more: The psychology behind climate inaction: How to beat the ‘doom barrier’

YouTube campaign

Immediately before the poll a campaign by prominent German YouTube personalities called for young voters to boycott the main parties, leading some commentators to put the shift in votes down to the influence of new media.

“We know that YouTubers are really important to young people, they are the new stars,” Rohrer told DW, but stressed that climate change was already an important issue on young people’s radar.

One analysis by DW before the election bore that out, noting that for many young people the European Union project was not about preventing a past but enabling a future.

Even mock EU elections across German high schools in previous weeks saw a third of the tens of thousands who took part stump for the Greens, indicating climate change will be a dominant issue for a long time to come.

But status quo parties’ engagement with social media is still lacking according to political analyst Martin Fuchs. Social networks are not a “press release dispatch station,” Fuchs told DW. “It’s about dialogue; it’s about participation and also about transparency.”

Class a factor

But Fuchs also emphasized the class dimension of the youth Green vote as well.

With many of the Fridays for Future students coming from schools with an emphasis on academia, they also reflect their well-educated families in their Green voting preferences, Fuchs argued.

At the same time, constituents with low education levels tended to be less inclined to vote, he said. 

Reaching both those demographics is vital to the traditional centrist parties that claim to govern for “the little people” as well, Fuchs said.

Read more: EU election: Turnout highest in 20 years

A divided political landscape

For some analysts, the historic youth vote this weekend signals a more fractured future political landscape, with the stability of the CDU and the SPD as part of the so-called “grand coalition” in doubt.

But whether young voters who distrust politics will remain engaged with that system, depends on whether the Greens can keep their promises, according to Rohrer.

If they can’t, “young people will say ‘OK, these politicians are not doing anything for us either and we will not trust them’. This is a huge job for the Greens.”

• European Parliament election results, the main countries at a glance

  Italy: Populist surge continues

  Interior Minister Matteo Salvini’s far-right League took 33.6% of the vote, a jump from the 17% claimed by the anti-immigration party in 2018 national elections. The results may change the balance of power in the League’s fragile coalition with 5-Star, which slumped to 16.6% compared to with 32% in national elections last year. The opposition Democratic Party won 23.5%.

• European Parliament election results, the main countries at a glance

  Spain: Traditional parties buck trend and bounce back

  Unlike much of the continent, Spain’s traditional center-left and center-right parties enjoyed a renaissance. The governing Socialists picked up 33% of the vote. That makes the PSOE the strongest social democrat delegation in the European Parliament. The conservative, pro-EU Popular Party won 20%, while Ciudadanos took 12.2%. The new far-right Vox party took only 6.2%; Podemos barely cracked 10%.

• European Parliament election results, the main countries at a glance

  Germany: Main parties suffer losses, Greens surge

  Angela Merkel’s CDU and its CSU ally won 28% of the vote, down 7 points from 2014. The Social Democrats continued to plunge, dropping 11 points to only 15.6%. The Greens emerged a real winner, doubling their support from the last polls to 20.7%. The euroskeptic Alternative for Germany (AfD) secured 10.6% percent, a notable dip from its 2017 general election performance.

• European Parliament election results, the main countries at a glance

  France: Len Pen on top, but most seats to pro-EU parties

  Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) claimed first place overall, but RN’s 23.5% of the vote represented a slight loss of support compared to 2014. The En Marche-led coalition won 22.5%, closer to Le Pen than polls had predicted. The Republicans and Socialists, France’s traditional heavyweights, continued their political collapse, while the Greens jumped to third.

• European Parliament election results, the main countries at a glance

  UK: Brexit Party first, Conservatives and Labour punished

  Britain emerged from the vote polarized as it tries to leave the EU by October. Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party took first place with 31.7%, although the pro-EU Liberal Democrats also enjoyed a surge in support. Both the Conservatives and Labour were hammered, receiving 8.7% and 14%, respectively. The UK’s latest batch of MEPs will vacate the European Parliament when or if the country leaves the EU.

• European Parliament election results, the main countries at a glance

  Hungary: Fidesz strong in polls, seeking a group in parliament

  Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told supporters that his Fidesz party, which won 13 of Hungary’s 21 seats in the EU Parliament, “will cooperate with everyone who wants to stop immigration.” Fidesz was suspended from the EPP bloc over the deterioration in the rule of law in Hungary. Orban did not address speculation that Fidesz could join Italy’s Matteo Salvini’s far-right bloc, the ENF.

• European Parliament election results, the main countries at a glance

  The Netherlands: Socialists win, anti-EU parties lose ground

  Frans Timmermans, the center-left Socialist and Democrats (SD) bloc’s top candidate, led his PvdA party to the top spot in the Netherlands with 19% of the vote . He’s called for progressive parties in the EU Parliament such as the Liberals, Greens and Socialist to work together. The Netherlands’ two right-wing populist parties secured a combined 15% of the vote.

  Author: Chase Winter

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