By Benedetta Zimone
The Committee of Constitutional Affairs (AFCO), in view of the upcoming European elections, organised a meeting on the 25th of October to exchange ideas and thoughts with Members of the European Parliament.
Sandro Gozi, an Italian member of the European political group Renew Europe, highlighted the issue of extremely low voter turnout, particularly in Italy.
“These episodes in our country are due to the big political discontent among Italian citizens since they believe that going to vote is becoming particularly worthless,” he said.
Consequently, Gozi suggested that one solution to convince people could be to make the decision-making process faster and more efficient, arguing that “this slowness alienates people from politics”.
The Italian politician noted the importance of creating new forms of citizen political participation. “It is not true that young people are not interested in public commitment, they have a great civic sense, however, they do not want to do it necessarily through a political party,” he argued.
Regarding this, Gozi reported a clear example. The Italian MEP explained that young French citizens experienced several new forms of democratic participation which increased their public commitment. Indeed, last April, more than one hundred people from the French Citizens` Convention on Assisted Dying worked together on a law proposal.
“These new forms of democratic participation can still give people the desire to become politically active again.”
Talking about young people, Gozi expressed his ambition to give 16-year-olds the right to vote in Italy, as Germany recently did.
“When Giorgia Meloni was Minister of Youth in 2008, I worked with her proposing to lower the voting age to 16,” he said.
Misinformation is another big issue in our democratic systems which must be kept under control, especially with elections approaching. Gozi claimed that “political advertising on social media has to be transparent”.
He said that social media can be a very powerful tool in bringing young people closer to politics, however, “several strict rules are highly necessary to protect democracy.”
Gozi is one of the rapporteurs of a new regulation proposal on transparency based on the Digital Service Act which seeks to target political advertising.
“I am working on this regulation to guarantee transparent democratic processes and to fight against misinformation and fake news,” he added.
The MEP explained that when elections occur, citizens should have the right to know who financed the election campaign.
In the proposal, Gozi explained that extra-European citizens have been banned from financing European electoral processes.
“Social media has the power to augment political participation, especially from the youngest, however, legal tools are crucial to defend our democracies,” he concluded.