Article by Natanael Iriciuc, volunteer within GIL Sector 1.
In just a few months, Romania will enter the most important electoral year. We are talking about a year in which Romanian citizens will be called to 4 rounds of elections to decide the direction of Romania for the coming years.
The year 2024 is a year that will test the involvement of Romanians in the electoral process, work made difficult by the crises we have gone through in recent years: a pandemic, border war, financial crisis, etc. All these phenomena have left their mark on Romanians, and this will be seen in the results of the 2024 elections. A real involvement in the electoral process does not only consist in exercising the right to vote, but emphasizes the responsible exercise of this right.
Through this article I want to present the “x-ray” of young people who will be asked to vote in the 2024 elections. In the documentation of this article I used the data Barometer of young people in Romania (edition 2022) implemented pro bono in favor of the Romanian Academic Society by the National Institute of Statistics.
We all know that young people have never represented an interest for political actors in Romania, and this did nothing but alienate even more the young people and local elected officials who were given the task of representing the interests of Romanians in the Romanian Parliament. This made the young people from Romania not to be found in the local communities, in the efforts of the central authorities for youth and to increase the number of young people leaving Romania. In the last 10 years, approximately 1.2 million young people (14-29 years old) left Romania, and this shows the extremely low degree of interest of Romanian politicians for young Romanians who should have invested in the training of young people, in their development and in capitalizing on the potential they have in society.
In addition to this distance between young people and local elected officials, the Romanian Youth Barometer shows an extremely low degree of trust for the central authorities: Government and Parliament. Concretely, 63% of young Romanians (18-29 years old) do not trust the Government at all, and 65% of young people do not trust the Parliament. The fact that young people in Romania do not trust the most important central authorities shows us the effects of the extremely low involvement of young people in central administrations and shows us the failure of youth policies at the national/national level because they failed to increase the degree of trust of young people in the central authorities. It is certain that this extremely low degree of trust in the Government and Parliament will also be seen in the turnout of young people in the 2024 elections, and this will endanger the outcome of the elections.
I want the 2024 elections to bring a change of vision regarding how young people can be involved in public administration, because the last years have shown us that excluding young people from public attention is not a solution for Romania. We need young people to stay in the country and to feel important, to feel that their contribution is decisive for Romania. We need politicians who no longer exclude young people from public attention, but who come with a clear vision regarding the role of young people in public administrations, in local and central communities. I wish that after the 2024 elections I can say that the Romanian state has realized the role it has in the training of today’s young people and is ready to undertake serious youth policies that will bring young Romanians closer to Romania.
The project is implemented by The Romanian Academic Society in partnership with the Act For Tomorrow Association and Vellenes Fellesorganisasjon and benefits from a 249.989 euros grant from Active Citizens Fund Romania, funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Grants Grants 2014 -2021. The content of this website does not necessarily reflect the official position of the EEA and Norway Grants 2014-2021; for more information, visit www.eeagrants.org. More details about Active Citizens Fund Romania are available at www.activecitizensfund.ro.