The vote is not enough for Europe’s youth

Lena Hoffmann is 24, studies political science in Berlin, and has voted in every election since she turned 18. She has also never trusted a single political party. “I vote because I feel I have to. But I do not believe anything changes.” Hoffmann is not unusual. Across Europe, a generation that grew up after the Cold War is renegotiating its relationship with democracy.

Hoffmann’s generation is not rejecting democracy outright. But it is redefining what it should look like. And the institutions built in the 20th century are struggling to keep up. The 2024 European Parliament elections produced record turnout among young voters. Around 42 percent of Europeans aged 18 to 24 cast a ballot, up from 28 percent in 2019, according to post-election data from the European Parliament.

On paper, this sounds like good news, but turnout and trust are different things. A Eurobarometer survey in 2023 found that only 40 percent of Europeans aged 15 to 24 said they trusted the EU as an institution. Confidence in national parliaments was even lower. Among the same age group, 53 percent said they felt their voice did not count in their country’s politics. This is not apathy — it is estrangement.

The cost-of-living is their primary issue

For many young Europeans, democracy is not an abstract principle. It is measured in rents, wages, and job contracts. Marco Ferri, 27, delivers food in Milan on a zero-hours contract. He has a university degree. He cannot afford to move out of his parents’ apartment. “Politicians talk about democracy and values. But I am 27 and I share a room with my brother. What does democracy give me, practically?”

Ferri’s situation is common. Housing costs in European cities have risen sharply over the past decade. In Amsterdam, average rents doubled between 2015 and 2023. In Lisbon, young workers spend more than 60 percent of their income on rent, according to Eurostat figures. And in Germany, the share of people under 35 who own a home fell by nearly 10 percentage points over the same period.

Young Europeans are not withdrawing from politics because they are uninterested. Many are withdrawing because mainstream parties have not answered these material questions. And some are finding answers elsewhere. One of the most documented shifts in European politics is the movement of young voters toward far-right parties, but how big of a phenomenon is this?

What is the far-right’s appeal to them?

In France’s 2024 European Parliament elections, Rassemblement National won around 30 percent of the vote among voters aged 18 to 24, according to Ipsos exit polling. In Germany, Alternative fur Deutschland polled higher among voters under 30 than in any other age group. In Italy, Fratelli d’Italia drew significant youth support before and after its 2022 general election victory.

These parties are often described as anti-democratic. But they are winning young voters, partly by making a democratic argument: that existing institutions are closed, corrupt, and unresponsive. They offer simplicity and anger. For a generation let down by centrist consensus, that is an effective offer.

Tomas Kovac, 25, studies journalism in Warsaw. He does not vote for the far right. But he understands why others do. “The mainstream parties had 30 years since 1989 to make democracy work for people here. They did not. So people are looking for something else. That is not surprising. It is logical.” Poland’s recent political history sharpens the picture.

Between 2015 and 2023, the Law and Justice government systematically weakened judicial independence and restricted press freedom. The European Commission opened multiple infringement procedures. In 2023, young Poles turned out in high numbers and removed Law and Justice from power. Their message was clear: democratic instincts remain strong when the stakes are visible.

The threat of climate instability looms large

No single issue defines young European political identity more than climate change. And no issue has exposed the limits of representative democracy more sharply. The Fridays for Future movement began in August 2018 when Greta Thunberg, then 15, sat outside the Swedish parliament demanding climate action. Within a year, millions of young people across Europe had joined.

The movement was explicitly democratic in its logic: that elected governments were failing their constitutional duty to future generations. That argument has entered courtrooms. In April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in the case of Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz v. Switzerland that Switzerland had violated the European Convention on Human Rights by failing to take adequate climate action.

The principle that inaction on climate is a rights violation is now established in European law. Amara Diallo is 22 and studies law in Paris. She has attended climate marches since she was 16. “For us, democracy means the government protects the future. Not just the economy today. When they ignore the climate, they are ignoring us as people who will live for 60 more years.”

Diallo’s view reflects something broader. Young Europeans increasingly see democracy not as a procedure, with elections held every few years, but as a substantive commitment to rights, representation, and the long-term interest. A vote cast in 2024 that does not bind governments to 2050 feels incomplete.

How institutions shape trust in modern democracy

The European Parliament has run its EU Youth Dialogue since 2010. The Conference on the Future of Europe, which ran from 2021 to 2022, involved citizens’ panels including young people and produced 49 reform proposals (although as of 2024, most remained unimplemented). And some governments have lowered the voting age to 16.

Austria, Scotland, Wales, and Germany for European elections now allow 16 and 17 year olds to vote. Research from Austria, where the lower voting age has been in place since 2007 shows that this has led people to be more inclined to remain politically engaged throughout their lives. These are genuine steps, but they are also insufficient answers to structural problems.

A housing market that excludes the young; a labour market built on precarity; a climate emergency that is only getting worse; and institutions that young Europeans perceive as being run for older and wealthier voters. Young Europeans are not abandoning democracy. They are demanding a version of it that works. The question is whether European institutions and national governments will move fast enough to meet that demand.

If institutions do not find a way to shape trust in modern democracy, then a generation shaped by economic stress, algorithmic information, and climate anxiety will continue to find its most coherent political language in movements, protests, and, too often, parties that offer simple answers to complex failures. The vote is not enough, says Lena Hoffmann. She is right. And, still, she is voting.

Names of interview subjects in this article have been changed to protect their privacy. The views expressed are representative of positions documented in Eurobarometer surveys, European Parliament youth polling, and field interviews conducted.