EU Elections 09: Eurosceptics will not gain ground in EU elections
One of the youngest MEPs in the European Parliament, German liberal Alexander Alvaro, told EurActiv in an interview that Eurosceptics will try to gain ground at the European elections next June, but will not succeed "because in times of crisis, voters do not want to try new experiments". Alvaro pointed out that local elections on the same day will cause more people to cast their ballot. But enlargement and recent referenda in Ireland, France and the Netherlands have also boosted interest in the European Union, Alvaro maintains. "People are more aware that the Union exists," he said, underlining the growing interest of young people in issues discussed at intergovernmental and international level. "They see that only if we are united can we fight climate change [or] work on the energy crisis, on the financial crisis [or] be of substantial help in Gaza," the MEP said.
"I think that the voters have realized that the European Union is their political future, and they want to become involved," he added.For the first time, social media will allow candidates to create more direct links with their electorate. But "Europeans are not Americans," stressed Alvaro, who is gathering supporters on online social networking service Facebook. According to the German MEP, Europeans are still more interested in picking up a newspaper. "We are going to give it a try, but it will surely have a different impact than the one we saw in the US elections. We just have different cultural ways of doing political campaigning," he said.
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