Do young candidates finally get to sit with the 'grown ups'?

Every 5 years, EU citizens can vote in the European elections. Turnout has been declining, with more focus on national elections. This podcast aims to highlight the importance of European elections and their impact on individuals. The guest, Arslan Jouriot, is a 19-year-old EU election candidate for Vote Belgium. He discusses his motivation to run, the challenges faced by young candidates, and the need for more representation of young people in the EU Parliament. He encourages other young people to participate and emphasizes the influence of the EU on national policies. Despite being from a smaller country, Jouriot believes that being a young candidate is challenging regardless of the country. European elections have more influence than people realize, as many national laws are adopted at the EU level. The podcast aims to shift the discussion from national to EU perspectives. Every 5 years, each EU citizen, starting from the age of either 16 or 18, gets to make a little cross on a sheet of paper. Whereas for some that cross is mandatory, like in Belgium. Estonians, for instance, can vote from the comfort of their own home online. Last time that happened was in 2019. So for the ones who are not too shabby in math, since then not 1, not 10, but exactly 5 years have passed. I hope at this point you've guessed what I'm talking about. The European elections 2024, of course. Thus, dear listener, are you in possession of a EU passport? Have you, by any chance, lived 18 years on this planet? Well, congratulations, you're one of 500 million that can draw such a little cross all by yourself between the 6th to 9th of June. Okay, jokes aside. In 1979, with the power of the Lisbon Treaty, European citizens got to vote for the very first time. 63% decided to make their voice count that year. Since then, turnout has declined greatly. That is why scholars today call the European elections second-order elections. EU individuals in the past have simply focused rather on their own national and regional elections than Europe-wide ones. This podcast tries to counteract such thinking and highlight the influence European elections can have. In the prior 5 years, the continent has faced a global pandemic, inflation, energy crisis, the rise of populism, and most importantly, war. Now, more than ever, we should care about the direction Europe is heading to. We should care about which norms represent our European voice on a global scale. Therefore, I believe this topic is directed to everybody, no matter the age, gender, nationality. If you live, work, or even just want to travel around Europe, you should grab that these elections results would have an impact upon you. So in order to emphasize the aim of highlighting the significance of the European elections, I chose a case which is rather a little atypical. When looking at mainstream scholarly work, a strong focus of it lies on growing anti-EU sentiment or policy directions among European parties and their candidates. However, they seem to leave out one of the most obvious details, the age of the individuals we vote for. Despite more and more young candidates daring to engage as politicians, the overall youth has been unrepresented in formal politics by underperforming. But why is that? Is it because of the lack of experience compared to older candidates? Are the parties at fault for not granting more resources to young individuals? Do young candidates finally get to sit at the table with the grown-ups? Some scholars have also brought attention to this topic, like Belsher, for instance. His main argument illustrates that young candidates are structurally disadvantaged on a party as well as individual level. Therefore, he disagrees with the cause being a direct age discrimination per se. But due to the 21st century being an era of change, such debate is quite novel and yet to be discovered. Today, instead of me ranting with a whole monologue on whether young candidates are structurally disadvantaged and how they can challenge mainstream perception, which draw them as unexperienced, naive, I decided we should hear from the source itself. Today, I brought with me Arslan Jouriot. He is not only a fellow student in my study International Relations and Organizations at Leiden University, but also happens to be an EU election candidate this year. With only 19, he will run for Vote Belgium. Thank you so much for being here, Arslan. How are you doing? I'm great. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Of course. Is this your first time recording a podcast? Absolutely. Yeah, me too. Very exciting. You don't have to worry about anything. We're going to start off very easy. What do you want to tell the listeners about you? How would you describe yourself in a few sentences? I said I'm relatively young compared to other candidates. I'm also pretty engaged now for a while. I am deeply motivated and engaged to make you better for young people and older for a lasting time. What was your motive to run for a candidate? Why did you become a candidate? Multiple reasons. First of all, I always wanted to create a lasting change. That was one of my deep motivations. I believe one of the best ways to create that is through politics. That was one of the main reasons. As well, I wanted to start representing young people because they're vastly underrepresented, especially in the EU Parliament. I said, why not? Let's do this. Why specifically both? Well, I'd say, first of all, I fell in love with the program. That's one of the main things that I want to emphasize, that the program really corresponded to me. I truly connected with all the measures when I read it for the first time. But then, that's also a young party that is full of hope. I think that if I was in another party, a more established one, I certainly don't think that I would have had the chance to be a candidate as easily. Although that wasn't really easy with vote as well, but I had my chance. Why was it not easy? Well, I still had to campaign internally for the elections. There were other very good candidates against me that were working at the EU Commission, for example, and have brilliant CVs. But I did make a point by my age and also in front of the members that I pretty much convinced them. That's awesome. Yeah, that's exactly why I brought you here, because before that I've never heard of a candidate that's 19 years old. I think it's pretty impressive. Thank you. So, for example, if another person who's also 19 would sit in front of you and would say, Arsane, I want to run for European elections, what would you tell them? What tips would you give them? Well, I think they should go. They should go for it, definitely. They should try. Also, I think that a lot of young people just don't dare to do it. There is nothing against running, but some specific tips that I would give to young people when they want to run is to prepare as much as they can for whichever event. Being a candidate, whatever, there's always a chance to prepare beforehand. I think that's very useful and something that I didn't catch quite completely from the start. What do you mean by preparing? What would you prepare exactly? Is it more knowledge or just what type of preparation? Yeah, pretty much knowledge, but any event, for example, let's say you have a presentation in front of others. Let's say you have to describe yourself in one minute. Really prepare that as it was the presentation of your life and really be extremely prepared so there is nothing you can leave a chance. You just have to be extremely prepared. That's one of the main advice I would give to young people. Okay, very nice. I hope anyone who's young here and is going to listen maybe will take this advice with you. What would you say is the aim of your candidacy? What are your goals? If you would be elected, what specific goals do you have for change? Well, multiple. First of all, I'm part of one of, I can say confidently, the most pro-European parties. One of our main goals is to shift the discussion from the national perspective to the EU one. That is something that I aim to do within my candidacy if I am elected. I also plan to more represent young people because that's, like I said before, truly one of the most underrepresented age category of the EU Parliament. So definitely more represent them. Also, I believe that I have truly the same interests as them because I'm their age. And so that means as well that in 30 years I will still face the consequences myself, contrary to maybe other people that would probably not be in this world anymore. I mean, you've kind of already touched upon it that European unity is very important to you. But I will still ask you, did you also ever consider running for national elections? Like within a party? I did. Obviously, I did consider running for every election. But for me, the EU election made the most sense for various reasons. But first of all, I believe that's also where I'm drawn to, I'm attracted to, because I believe that's very interesting for me and also extremely important. And I think there will be quite surely a shift of power between the national power and some national competencies to the EU competencies. And also, I want to participate in that in the future. Okay, very cool. And so I've also said in the introduction, I don't know if you listened, that a lot of scholars, or we even learned at an ICP, International Comparative Politics, that people call the EU elections second order elections. So what would you say to the people who say, okay, I don't know, it's not really that important. Like also, for example, voter turnout has been declining, people have been prioritizing the national elections. So what would you say to the people who say, I don't know, European elections, whatever, kind of? I'd say first of all, that the EU election has much more influence than what people generally think. Because a lot is decided at the EU level. And a lot of national directives and a lot of national laws are being adopted at the EU level. So I think that, first of all, their vote is important because of that, because they will influence their own life with their vote. But also, I think that there is quite a more structural problem with politicians not making the European Union as important as they should always. Most of all, designing it as a problem and not as a solution, and not taking priority. And also, I think I mentioned in my introduction, you're from Belgium. So would you say that being from a smaller country was easier for you to be a young candidate? Because, for example, I'm from Germany, and becoming active in politics in Germany is quite, I don't know, it's hard. There's definitely a whole structure, you have to work your way up in a way. You're not easily selected as a candidate, especially not for big things like the EU Parliament. So would you say that being from Belgium definitely impacted the way you got to be the candidate? Obviously also for other reasons, because you're prepared and you're really motivated. But do you think there is also, to some extent, Belgium the reason why? Like the country size and everything? I mean, it's obviously difficult to judge a person that has never tried to be a candidate in Germany. That's true. That might have played. But also, one thing that I want to add is that in Germany, the threshold to be elected is much lower compared to Belgium. Oh, really? Yeah, that's quite interesting, actually, because Germany elects 96 MEPs, members of European Parliament, compared to Belgium that only elects 22. And for my constituency, the French-speaking Belgium, we only elect 8 people. So that means that for me, the threshold to be elected is 12.5%, which is huge. Oh, that's crazy, I didn't know that. Yes, compared to Germany where the threshold is, well, even lower. Really? Yeah, I think it's something around 1%. So, yeah, there is definitely a big difference. Oh, I didn't know that. Okay, that's very interesting. Okay, thank you. So, in case this election does not work out for you, I'm going to knock on wood for that, because I really hope it will. Thank you. Would you run again in five years? Well, I don't know. We'll see, I guess, in five years what will happen. But I'm definitely not close to that option. But I'll have to see where I am in my life first, and if I want to run again, because the election being a candidate is pretty exhausting, I guess. And also, that's a big commitment. But I will be open for that, yeah. That's exactly actually a follow-up question. I'm also an IRO, and right now, second year, it's very stressful with everything going on. So, I was wondering, how do you manage being a student and a candidate at the same time? Well, sometimes, I must say, it gets pretty stressful. Especially sometimes, everything comes at once. Everything comes at me, not at me specifically. But I'd say definitely something that really helped, and I wasn't doing as much as organize myself. No, I'd say that pretty much my life is organized three weeks in advance. And so, I know what's going to happen. And that also helps a lot in terms of when I'm going to study and when I'm going to campaign. Yeah, I think it's very impressive, because I'm getting overwhelmed about being a candidate. I think a lot of other students can say the same. So, it's very, very cool. So, thank you so much for your input. Now that me and the listeners got to know you a little bit, unless you want to tell anything else, like any other information you would love to share? No, I don't think so. I don't think so, no. Okay, then we're going to go to the second part of our podcast, which is going to be a debate, I mean a little bit of a debate, a friendly debate, whether young candidates finally get to sit with the grown-ups. That's also the title of the podcast. So, we will also talk a little bit about negotiation, because the course I'm doing right now, it's about the art to negotiate. And negotiation is a big part of politics, of course. You have to convince people to vote for you. So, again, you have to convince people to vote for you, and that voting is the right thing. So, if I vote for you, you will promise me the things you've been advocating for, right? It's kind of like a social contract, also the thing we learned, putting in some political science terms here. So, these politicians are way older than you, and you're sitting with them at the table, and they see you as naive and inexperienced and everything. So, how would your strategy be to negotiate with them? How would you try to convince them that you can sit with the grown-ups at one table? I mean, first of all, I'd like to say that I'm not necessarily sure that I will have to prove myself. If I'm elected, I've been proving myself by getting the votes of more than 200,000 people. So, I think that would be my great source of legitimacy. As all of them, they all did that to prove themselves that they were fit to be in the EU Parliament, the democratic legitimacy. But then, obviously, at some point, I have to negotiate for negotiating laws and writing laws as well. But I think that's also not... I don't think that they would necessarily deem me as inexperienced and naive. That might be the first impression that people get before knowing me or before hearing me. But quite frankly, after they know me, I had a lot of people coming to me saying, wow, you're actually fit for that. So, that's also pretty cool, and I'm not especially worried for that. Okay, that's great. I think, I don't know, the whole course got me thinking a lot, because we also talked about the types of negotiator. There's also different types. There are people who are more on the empathetical side, and they're really putting themselves in the shoes. And there are people who are like, I'm sure you know people who are very stubborn, and they don't want to give up their point or their point of view just because they're too stubborn. So, when it comes to the types of negotiating, I don't have them right now here with me, but what would you say? Are you more like a person who's very stubborn and very to their point, or would you always rather depend on the person you're negotiating with? I definitely think that, for me, that's a mix. I think that I'm probably maybe more on the empathetic side with other people, but also I have a lot of confidence in proposals and measures. So, I would have to need some pretty convincing arguments in front of me to give up my point or to accept that. Obviously, negotiation is not just about giving up your position. It's about finding a good middle in between our positions. Okay, nice. So, we're going to talk about Belzner. I also mentioned him in the introduction. He basically says that young candidates are structurally disadvantaged rather than directly discriminated against for their age. So, what is your opinion on that? Have you experienced any age discrimination during your time as a candidate? What have been situations where you felt like your age was kind of a disadvantage? You can also shoot a story if you want to. I think listeners would be very interested in it. Yeah, sure. I'm not sure I have a specific story in mind, but definitely that happened. The first meetings where I was a candidate, people were actually not asking my opinion. It's not really explicit. It's not like, yeah, we don't care about you because you're young. It's more like, yeah, I was saying that they were asking other candidates, but I wasn't being asked. And I can definitely say that that was mostly because of my age. But then, yeah, at some point, they know my worth and they confidently asked me to stop discriminating me. So, yeah, I've been experiencing that. But also in terms of, is it more structural or is it more like a discrimination? I'd say, yeah, mostly structural. I guess people are not used to working with young candidates. And also young people don't think about being a candidate in the first place. So definitely more structural than just discrimination because I don't think people were really discriminating me because of my age. Okay, yeah. No, and also just a question out of curiosity. Are you like the only young candidate running for a Belgian vote or are there also other ones? I guess the question would be, what would you define as young? Well, I would say like under 30. Okay, 30, sorry for everyone who is 30. You're not young anymore. No, you're young, you're young. We're just younger. Under 30, is there any other involved Belgium? I don't believe so. But we do have like candidates all over Europe and I definitely think at least in Netherlands. I know one of my friends is also a candidate. Oh, yeah, he's also in our course, right? Yes, absolutely. I should have also brought him to the podcast. Yeah, right now he's like in Portugal. He was campaigning for the Portuguese election, national election. But yeah, he's also a candidate on the national, on the European Dutch list. And do you guys like talk a lot about being a candidate so young? Because you guys can relate to each other in a way. It's kind of nice, right? Absolutely. No, that's pretty fun because at some point, early this year, we were discussing about both being elected in the EU parliament and about who's going to be the youngest MEP ever. But yeah, definitely, we discussed that a lot, especially that he's been involved in VOLT for many years now. And he's been of great advice to me. So shout out to Ruben. Hey, let's go. I don't know if he's going to listen to it, but I'm going to upload it on YouTube. So whoever gets the link, they can listen to it. Maybe I'll get famous. No, probably not. Okay. Also, another question. So one of the hypotheses in Belzner's article, you see, I really like this guy. He has very interesting articles. He says that young candidates are more likely to run for a less resourceful or smaller party. So could that also be a reason why you chose VOLT? Because it is so accessible and smaller? Or, for example, if you would have all the resources and every party would take you, would you also have chosen another party to run for? I do not think so. Because I don't think there is any party, at least in Belgium, I'm pretty sure that there is no party that is representing me as much as VOLT does. And so that's mostly why I chose VOLT. And I chose VOLT first to be a member, not to be a candidate. I didn't apply that just to be a candidate. No, I definitely chose them because they convinced me, not because of their size. Okay. Nice. And also, I was just thinking, how did your parents react when you told them, like, oh, I'm going to run for European Parliament? What was their reaction? Or if you have siblings, their siblings' reaction? Or friends in Belgium? Because I feel like in IRO, I don't know, it is very cool and very surprising, but also we have so many crazy people here. So, no, it's amazing that you're running. But I'm just saying, for an everyday person, that sounds so bad. But, like, someone who, yeah, just kind of has nothing to do really with politics. I don't know how political your parents are or whatever. But, you know, just friends, family, people in your inner circle, how did they react when you told them, oh, I'm going to run for EU Parliament? Yeah. No, they were definitely surprised, but first I had some troubles explaining to them what am I running for, you know? Because, like, first I was, like, running to be a candidate. Yeah. And then I was officially a candidate. But then they were quite not understanding, like, which election again? That's so funny. But definitely, yeah, I had, like, a large range of reactions from, like, oh, really? That's cool. Or, like, what? That's crazy. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, my parents were pretty surprised, but also, like, they still emphasized how much I need to finish my studies, too. That's so real, though. Yeah, that's funny, though. No, yeah. And, like, when it comes closer, like, for example, when we're going to be in fourth block, are you going to also, like, be at uni and kind of, like, have a little stand and advocate for your candidacy or not really? I don't think so. I don't think that. The time I'll be at uni, I think I'll use that time to study. Fair enough, fair enough. Make your parents proud and everything. Yeah, especially that I think that I'll be spending more and more time in Brussels because now I'm, like, roughly spending half of my week here, half of my week in Brussels or in Belgium as well. So definitely when I'll be here, that will be mostly to study and I'll be just there, I guess, one or two days a week next block. Okay. So also kind of linking to that question I just had, like, getting to know, I guess you kind of advocate, like, you still, like, get to know your voters in a way or, like, get to know the people who are interested and involved. There is another scholar, not Belgian this time. Sorry, guys. It's over with him. His name is Seve. And he examined whether a candidate's age has an influence on the age of their voters. So if being a young voter also means you would vote for a young candidate, like, there's basically, there's, like, a relation between these two things. So again, I'm assuming you have tried to advocate for your candidacy so far. And I saw you even have an Instagram account. I'll link it in the bio. So that's how you have engaged with your audience and maybe get an idea of their age. So would you agree with Seve's hypothesis? Would you say that your audience is rather close to your age or does it really differ? Also maybe, especially in Belgium, like, are there, for example, like, in the capital, is it different in other smaller cities and stuff like that? Well, I'd say that obviously my audience is more my age. I think that makes more sense, especially that, yeah. I mean, it's way easier to relate to someone that is your age in politics than someone that is, like, 30 years older than you. But also I don't know who's going to vote for me. Fair enough. Maybe older people would vote for me. But, yeah, I don't think that my rather typical target voters would be, like, the 60 years old or plus. Fair enough. Yeah. But whether or not there's a difference between cities about the age, not really. Not really. It's just when we were campaigning, we just, like, campaigned either in universities or in the streets. And so, like, we really, like, talked to, like, a large range of people in terms of age. They can be old, they can be very young. And especially that voters can vote as soon as they're 60. Yeah, that's crazy. Which is pretty good. We're pretty proud to have that as well. So that's also, we'll try to convince them to vote. Yeah, when I also, like, I, like, obviously, like, confirmed myself a little bit about the European elections. And I saw that in Belgium it's mandatory to vote, right? Yeah. So you get, like, a fee? Yeah, I mean, don't say that, but it's not really enforced when you don't vote. It's not, like, usually it would be, like, a 20 or, like, a 50 euro fine. But, like, you won't get a fine if you don't go to vote. But that's also why we have, like, I think the biggest turnout in all of Europe. I mean, it makes sense. With, like, 90% people going to vote, which is crazy. I love that. I love that people are, like, kind of obliged to go to vote. I think that's really good for the democracy. But, yeah, unfortunately, that's not the case for every country. Yeah, exactly. Like I said in the introduction, like, Estonians can just vote online, which I think is very funny. And then in Germany, it's very complicated. Like, I have to get a whole letter and it's a little... Yeah, absolutely. So, kind of, like, we're slowly coming to a conclusion now for the podcast. Unless, again, you want to say anything? No. Yeah, I mean, I would definitely encourage everyone to go to vote. Please go to the ballot, vote vault. And, yeah, see you the 9th or between the 6th and the 9th of June 2024, which are the dates for the European elections all over Europe. Slay. Very nice. I don't think I should have said slay. I'm sorry. We're going to keep it formal. But I think that this podcast has been very eye-opening for me. I think it's great to, like, get to know candidates who are, like, our age. I'm assuming that most people who are going to listen to this podcast are not above, let's say, 35. And, yeah, so I think it's great that, again, when it comes to negotiation, you're trying to convince the people. You're trying to get your point across. And I think you've kind of negotiated your way in this podcast, like, as being a young candidate and motivating people to run. Again, youth is underperforming, and people should be represented. And especially with issues like climate change and issues that are impacting our generation and not the generations who are, like, older than us, it's very important that we have young people sitting at the table with grown-ups. So thank you so, so much, Arslan. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Of course. And so, yeah, if you guys have any questions or if you have any questions, you can let me know. And, yeah, thank you so much. It's really nice. And, yes, goodbye.