Taylor Swiftthe most listened to singer on Spotify in 2023has a legion of swifties who idolize her and the European Commission believes that her influence can be crucial in mobilizing the young vote in the next European elections. The vice president for the promotion of the European lifestyle of the European Commission, Margaritis Schinas, remarked this Wednesday that she is “crucial” achieve high youth participation in the European elections and hopes for the collaboration of personalities such as the American singer Taylor Swift to mobilize the vote of young Europeans.

In a press conference, Schinas assured that no one can encourage electoral participation better than the young people themselves and, as an example, referred to how Taylor Swift managed to mobilize 35,000 young people in the US midterm elections through an appeal on their social networks.

“Taylor will be in Europe on May 9 for a concert in Paris, so I hope he does the same for young Europeans and that someone from his team follows this press conference and conveys our request,” encouraged the community vice president. Likewise, Schinas hoped that young Europeans would become “a wall of democracy” next June against “the wave of populism and hatred that threatens Europe.”

These statements took place in the presentation of the conclusions of the European Youth Year 2022a community initiative aimed at highlighting the importance of youth in the future of the EU, and which included more than 13,000 activities in 67 countries around the world led by around 2,700 interested parties.

Five key areas for young people

The community Executive also announced that it will apply a “youth control” in the design of community policies through tools such as consultations and impact assessments to ensure that young people have a greater influence on community policy. The European Commissioner for Innovation, Culture and Education, Iliana Ivanova, explained that the communication identifies five key areas for youth participation: Health & Wellness; environment and climate change; education and formation; international cooperation and European values, and employment and inclusion.

Within this strategy, Brussels will launch different measures such as political dialogues between young people and European commissioners, “cross-cutting integration” round tables and a platform for continuous exchange with organizations and young researchers. It will also strengthen the EU Youth Dialogue – the largest community mechanism that promotes the participation of this sector of the population in Europe – to ensure that youth perspective is reflected throughout the political agenda.

Likewise, the EC will update its framework of quality for internship periods this 2024 in order to address fair remuneration and access to social protection, as well as promote the development of a joint European title that proves having studied at a university that is part of a European alliance.