European elections 2014: to Barbecue or cast the ballot?

Published on April 29, 2014

Story by

Lilian Pithan

Cafébabel Berlin

Translation by:

Danny S.

Berlin

Al­ready have some­thing planned for Sun­day, May 25th, 2014? While there are those who are eager to spend a lazy day in the park with their beer and wurst, or those who are ex­cited to take their first dips in the many lakes around Berlin, oth­ers will be sleep­ing off their drunk­en­ness from the night be­fore. Nev­er­the­less, there are some good rea­sons why the temp­ta­tions of bar­be­cues and beds should be re­sisted for at least ten min­utes on May 25: just enough time to check some boxes on the bal­lot for the Eu­ro­pean Elec­tions 2014.

Eu­rope, huh? Why the elec­tion counts

For the eighth time in the his­tory of the Eu­ro­pean Union, cit­i­zens are  able to di­rectly vote for the Eu­ropean Par­lia­ment, which is lo­cated in Brus­sels and Stras­bourg; but they couldn't be more dis­in­ter­ested. In light of the elec­tions, the pop­u­la­tion's voter's fa­tigue is being be­moaned on all chan­nels and across all party lines. Why doesn't any­one know even one of the top run­ning can­di­dates? Why does Brus­sels still feel so far away? What's going on with the dreaded "ad­vance­ment of right-wing parties in Eu­rope?" And why does every­one still think of Berlus­coni's inane SS-Mann com­par­i­son when they hear the name Mar­tin Schulz, a com­par­i­son which should have long been old news?

Be­cause Cafébabel Berlin be­lieves that check­ing boxes isn't too much ef­fort for the sake of Eu­rope's fu­ture, we will be re­port­ing until May 25th on every­thing rel­e­vant to the Eu­ro­pean Elec­tions 2014. How does a Eu­ro­pean elec­tion work and who are we ac­tu­ally elect­ing? What do Jean-Claude Juncker, Mar­tin Schulz and the other can­di­dates stand for? What sig­nif­i­cance does the Wahl-O-Mat tell me? What are the par­ties' stances on en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion and equal rights? You'll be able to read that and more in the mag­a­zine. If you can't wait, check out the website of The Fed­eral Agency for Civic Ed­u­ca­tion (bpb) for more information. And don't forget that slight in­terup­tion of lazi­ness to cast your vote on May 25th.

Eu­ropean elec­tions 2014 at Cafébabel Ber­lin

Be­cause Eu­rope has not only a hip, ex­cit­ing and young side, but also needs po­lit­i­cal in­sti­tu­tions, May 25, 2014 re­mains a fixed date in our cal­en­dars. When, what, where and why are we vot­ing? More in­for­ma­tion about elec­tion day, the par­ties and the po­lit­i­cal struc­ture of the EU in gen­eral can be ac­quired through the mag­a­zine, and as al­ways through Face­book and Twit­ter.

Translated from Europawahlen 2014: Grillen oder Kreuzchen machen?