Croatia’s Gen Z list for EU vote campaigns over cocktails and quizzes
ZAGREB (Reuters) – A lively crowd of young Croatians packed into a hipster bar in downtown Zagreb on Tuesday evening for an EU-themed pub quiz organised by candidates with an average age of 26 running in this week’s elections for the European Parliament.
“We are the only list of this kind in any European country,” said Nina Skocak, 26, who leads the Gen Z list of 12 candidates from across the European Union member country.
“We only have young candidates – we’re aged 19 to 30 – so this is something very specific that has never happened before in Croatia.”
Around 373 million citizens across the 27 EU member states are eligible to vote on June 6-9 in elections to the European Parliament (EP), which is the European Union’s only directly elected body.
The Gen Z list was formed by Skocak and some likeminded contemporaries after they discovered that only about 1% of legislators in the European Parliament were under 30 years old.
They have campaigned on policies such as affordable housing for young people, digital transformation and the regulation of big tech companies and social media networks.
Another of their campaign pledges is to fight for the minimum voting age in Croatia to be reduced to 16 from 18, and their platform also emphasises human rights, sustainability and the green policies.
Drinkers in the Tres Chic bar in Zagreb debated quiz questions from the title of the EU anthem to how European elections are organised.
“We want to educate young people about European policies, about European elections because not enough people understand how important these elections are, especially now when we see a sort of far-right surge in Europe,” said Martin Oresic, 28, another Gen Z list candidate.
“I think what we can bring in the European parliament.. is an extreme will to change things,” said Oresic, an adviser in a business association in Brussels. “Maybe we don’t know everything but we are really, really looking for answers.”
