With the 2024 European elections around the corner, the Grassroots View is looking at the hopes and concerns of three groups whose voices are often neglected by policymakers: people with disabilities, senior citizens and young people.
We checked in with Milan Šveřepa, president of Inclusion Europe, to see if anything had changed on the accessibility front since 2019, when millions of Europeans were barred from voting due to intellectual disabilities or were prevented from going to the polls simply because the polling stations could not accommodate their physical disability.
We asked youth activist and influencer Nina Skočak whether she thought the voting age should be lowered to 16 and what was at stake for young people in this election.
We wanted to hear from Heidrun Mollenkopf, the president of AGE Platform, which advocates for senior citizens, about whether older people felt included in election debates or rather dismissed and written off by politicians.
And we asked the EESC’s vice-president for communication, Laurențiu Plosceanu, what the EESC does to keep amplifying the voices of civil society, making sure that the more vulnerable do not get side-lined or marginalised.
Enjoy our podcast, use your vote and speak up for yourself, shape up the Europe you want!
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With the 2024 European elections around the corner, the Grassroots View is looking at the hopes and concerns of three groups whose voices are often neglected by policymakers: people with disabilities, senior citizens and young people.
We checked in with Milan Šveřepa, president of Inclusion Europe, to see if anything had changed on the accessibility front since 2019, when millions of Europeans were barred from voting due to intellectual disabilities or were prevented from going to the polls simply because the polling stations could not accommodate their physical disability.
We asked youth activist and influencer Nina Skočak whether she thought the voting age should be lowered to 16 and what was at stake for young people in this election.
We wanted to hear from Heidrun Mollenkopf, the president of AGE Platform, which advocates for senior citizens, about whether older people felt included in election debates or rather dismissed and written off by politicians.
And we asked the EESC’s vice-president for communication, Laurențiu Plosceanu, what the EESC does to keep amplifying the voices of civil society, making sure that the more vulnerable do not get side-lined or marginalised.
Enjoy our podcast, use your vote and speak up for yourself, shape up the Europe you want!
19. The Western Balkan countries at the doorstep of the European Union
The Grassroots View
14 minutes 40 seconds
3 years ago
19. The Western Balkan countries at the doorstep of the European Union
The long-awaited accession process of the Western Balkan countries to the EU is on the EU agenda. This episode of the "Grassroots view" is focusing on EU enlargement, discussing the principle of gradual and progressive integration and the perspective of the region to integrate in the EU family.
What are the similarities and differences between the first great enlargement of the EU to 10 new countries in 2004 and the membership process for the Western Balkan countries? What is the attitude of the civil society in these countries to EU integration? Will the EU's increased focus on Ukraine affect the decision to negotiate with the Western Balkans?
All these questions will be answered by our guests, often witnesses of the EU negotiation process, such as Ionut Sibian, EESC member and president of the Western Balkans follow-up Committee, whose country Romania joined the EU in 2007 or Jaroslaw Pietras, a former senior European Union and Polish government official, engaged in the Polish EU accession process. Dafina Peci, secretary-general of the National Youth Congress of Albania shared with us Albanian civil society hopes for joining the European family.
Two journalists, Camille-Cerise Gessant from Agence Europe and Erisa Zykaj, an EU correspondent for Western Balkans media in Brussels, give a journalistic view of relations between the EU and the Western Balkan countries queuing up to become members of the EU.
The Grassroots View
With the 2024 European elections around the corner, the Grassroots View is looking at the hopes and concerns of three groups whose voices are often neglected by policymakers: people with disabilities, senior citizens and young people.
We checked in with Milan Šveřepa, president of Inclusion Europe, to see if anything had changed on the accessibility front since 2019, when millions of Europeans were barred from voting due to intellectual disabilities or were prevented from going to the polls simply because the polling stations could not accommodate their physical disability.
We asked youth activist and influencer Nina Skočak whether she thought the voting age should be lowered to 16 and what was at stake for young people in this election.
We wanted to hear from Heidrun Mollenkopf, the president of AGE Platform, which advocates for senior citizens, about whether older people felt included in election debates or rather dismissed and written off by politicians.
And we asked the EESC’s vice-president for communication, Laurențiu Plosceanu, what the EESC does to keep amplifying the voices of civil society, making sure that the more vulnerable do not get side-lined or marginalised.
Enjoy our podcast, use your vote and speak up for yourself, shape up the Europe you want!
