BIn future, 16 and 17-year-olds will also be able to cast their votes in Germany in the elections to the European Parliament. On Thursday evening, the Bundestag lowered the minimum age for participation in the European elections from 18 to 16 years. The deputy legal policy spokeswoman for the SPD parliamentary group, Carmen Wegge, spoke of a necessary expansion of political participation: All social protest movements of the past few years were largely initiated by young people.
The new regulation is to be applied for the first time in the elections to the EU Parliament planned for May 2024. According to the coalition, the number of those entitled to vote will increase by almost 2.3 percent.
In some federal states, the voting age is already 16 for state elections and more often for local elections, but you have to be at least 18 years old to take part in federal elections. A recent interim report by the Electoral Law Commission comes to the conclusion that there are no constitutional concerns about lowering the voting age, but the CDU and CSU as well as the AfD reject the plan.
The legal advisor of the Union faction, Ansgar Heveling (CDU), pointed out that in most other EU countries the standard voting age is 18. It is only lower in Malta, Austria and Greece.