Abstract
This paper presents the preliminary findings of two case studies currently conducted in Austria and Estonia on the empowerment of mobile youth in the European Union, i.e. citizens from other EU member states aged 16 to 29 who are resident in Austria and Estonia. The case studies are actions within the framework of a two-year project funded by the European Union (Empowerment of European Mobile Youth - EMY). The project’s principal objective is to identify opportunities and barriers for the democratic and social engagement of mobile youth in these two countries. More specifically, the two case studies aim to (1) explore how young EU citizens experience the exercise of their EU citizenship rights in their host country and (2) identify requirements for a practical web-based tool to facilitate their engagement in the political live in their host country. This tool should potentially be transferable to other EU member states.
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Notes
- 1.
The European Union’s Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (2014–2020). Project duration: 1 February 2019–31 January 2021. See https://europeanmobileyouth.eu/.
- 2.
27 EU member states as of 1 February 2020 due to the UK leaving the European Union.
- 3.
Population size: approx. 8,9 million in Austria, approx. 1,3 million in Estonia.
- 4.
Erasmus+ is an EU programme (budget: € 14.7 billion) which funds opportunities to study, teach/train, and gain experience abroad, https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/node_en.
- 5.
EU citizens can choose whether to vote in their home or host country provided they are registered according to national election regulations, which differ in terms of administrative requirements.
- 6.
European Parliament elections take place every five years. The last elections took place from 23–26 May 2019.
- 7.
No precise election data (e.g. sociodemographic data, percentage of mobile young people who actually made use of their active and passive right to vote, etc.) is legally recorded in Austria by the Ministry of the Interior or other statistical offices.
- 8.
Citizens of the EU have the right to vote in local government (council) elections and in EP elections while residing in Estonia. A person must be of at least 18 years of age to be eligible to vote, except in local government (council) elections, where 16- and 17-year-olds have been given the right to vote. The procedure to register for voting in EP elections in Estonia in brief, is the following: the paper notice is sent by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Estonia to all EU citizens who have the right to vote in Estonia to their registered residency address. The notice includes the information letter as well as the application letter to be filled in and sent back to the Ministry in due time.
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Acknowledgements
The case studies are actions within the framework of a two-year project funded by the European Union (Empowerment of European Mobile Youth - EMY).
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Leitner, C., Allagha, M., Krenjova, J., Reinsalu, K., Stiefmueller, C. (2020). Empowering European Mobile Youth: Case Studies from Austria and Estonia. In: Spohrer, J., Leitner, C. (eds) Advances in the Human Side of Service Engineering. AHFE 2020. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1208. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51057-2_44
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