At EuropCom, the largest annual meeting point for experts in the field of public communication, locally and regionally elected liberals such as François Decoster, Gunars Ansins and Dovydas Kaminskas discussed tackling disinformation, participatory campaigns and how to activate young voters.
Renew Europe CoR President François Decoster, participating in the “Activating voters ahead of the 2024 European elections”, discussed how to reach out to first time voters:
“The EU takes important decisions for our future that will shape the world in which the youngest generations will live. Decisions to fight climate change or to transform our economy takes time to be implement but the youngest generations should commit themselves to ensure the respect of the targets fixed for the long run. Thus, participation of the youngest generations should be higher for each European election!
He also added: “The main questions should be: who are we voting for and why?
One of our Young elected Politicians represented the European outermost regions: Hélène Pollozec came all the way from Mayotte, an overseas department and region of France, participating in the idea’s lab on “Audience segmentation as communication strategy”. Bringing her perspective from her part of the world, she said: “The EU is part of our daily lives and this EuropCom conference shows it’s very important for democracy to share experiences and ideas and keeping in touch with our European side. In Mayotte for instance, we are both African and European as we are part of the African continent but we have a more euro-centric mindset as the European level affects us as well”
Other participating members were Gunars Ansins, Mayor of Liepaja, Latvia, in the “Building resilience to election-related information manipulation” ideas lab and Dovydas Kaminskas, Mayor of Taurage, Lithuania, in the “Participatory campaigns are a two-way street! Citizen engagement initiatives ahead of elections” to see how to reach out to citizens in an engaging and massive manner ahead of elections?
EuropCom, the largest annual meeting point for experts in the field of public communication, focused on communicating Democracy, Communicating Europe, and was held in Brussels on 26 and 27 June 2023.
