League of Young Voters hosts “Choose Your Future” youth debate

Today (21st January) the League of Young Voters, along with Debating Europe, organised a debate, “Choose your Future”, at the launch of Microsoft’s new headquarters in Brussels. The hour-long, youth-led debate featured a panel of four MEPs from the main political parties and was based around three themes: unemployment, education and entrepreneurship.

The high-level, interactive debate was an important opportunity to get different political parties together in the run up to the European elections in May to face interrogation on key issues affecting young people across Europe today. It was part of the Debating Europe Vote 2014 initiative by Debating Europe and the League of Young Voters, a politically neutral organisation set up and run by the European Youth Forum to amplify the concerns and expectations of young people in the run up to the European elections.

The debate featured lively discussions between the politicians and young people on key questions such as this from a young Spaniard: “My main concern is the implementation of austerity measures on southern countries that are suffering the most from the crisis and that are not delivering good results and force young people to emigrate to "rich" countries to look for a better future.”

The MEPs who took part in today’s debate were: Edit Bauer MEP, European People's Party, Mary Honeyball MEP, Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, Phil Bennion MEP, Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe and Rebecca Harms MEP, European Greens.

For more information about the League of Young Voters, go to: http://www.youngvoters.eu/eu