In a celebrated 2007 crime novel, not the first young sheriff, played by Tommy Lee Jones, hears a informing from his cousin’s mouth: “This country is giving people a hard time. You can't halt what's coming. And there will be nothing to wait for you.”
It's about the Coen brothers movie, of course. This is not a country for old people. – why did I let myself to paraphrase this title to compose about the situation of young generations in European democracies? After all, modern Europe does not match the chaotic deserts of western Texas, where the game of the Coen image is set. Yes, there will besides be older people in Europe who find it hard to safe a decent life, but I think that the situation of young people is much worse than that of older people. This is due to the main drawback of democracy, or alternatively to its shortsightedness.
Democracy is simply a hostage to the electorate, and in Europe this does not mean young people. In the fresh elections to the European Parliament, the percent of first-time voters (electors who reached the voting age at the time of the last European election in 2019) was well below 10%. Therefore, it is hard to blame them for the fact that their votes do not translate into changes in public affairs. For there are besides fewer young voters to be able to influence any authority.
Generations even younger than those who can already vote, and generations who have not yet been born, can number on much worse treatment from democracy, despite the fact that the number of these generations is fundamentally unlimited. Reduction in the age of active electoral lawwill benefit only a tiny fraction of future generations. That's why we have a problem.
Politicians, I must say, are curious in future generations incredibly. How many photos of our leaders with babies and children were we allowed to watch during subsequent run campaigns? How many environmental promises have been made to guarantee The life of future generations on this padola was even bearable? How many times have we heard about how crucial education is to building sustainable prosperity? I will not even mention the assurances that public finances will yet be tamed so that future generations do not gotta pay the bill after their predecessors.
Unfortunately, even seemingly liable leaders are notoriously breaking most of these promises. And that's due to the fact that politicians can't afford to turn a blind eye to electoral arithmetic. erstwhile hard political decisions request to be made, those with more votes behind win. That's how democracy works. Those who have the majority give what they want – and those who have the majority are usually young people. We can call it rational choice, egoism or shortsightedness, but it doesn't matter. The applicable effects of policy programmes and solutions that harm young people are important.
A lot of water has passed in Wisla since the slogan “no taxes without representation” was adopted. What's left of him? Future generations are constantly "taxed" today, although they are not represented in politics and have no voice. It is no wonder, therefore, that in a comparatively prosperous country specified as Germany, only 21 percent of the Z-generation and the Millenniums say that they consistently support democracy, with In the group over 70 years, this figure is 66%.. Support for young people for democracy in France was even lower and only 14%. The global state of democracy besides raises concerns. As the Bertelsmann Foundation Index of 2022 shows, for the first time in years the planet is more countries with an autocratic strategy than a democratic system.
We like to blame this sad state of populists, but we should not ignore the influence of another factors. The flat, digitised planet is moving at an unprecedented rate, with profound effects on democracy and young people. Climate change speeds up significantly, bringing a threat to young generations that their parents never dreamed of. The pace of economical transactions besides marks mainly young people who virtually sleep in the office (with a smartphone in their hand) and work 24/7. Or take the "gyg of economy", that is, the economy of jobs and one-time orders, in which pensions and labour rights disappear. The shortsightedness of democracy could be tolerated in pre-internet times, but it now strikes with full force in young and future generations on different fronts.
The consequence of democracy to this epochal acceleration disappoints in all respect. The European Green Deal was in ruins, as was global advancement achieved through the 2016 Paris climate agreement. "There is fundamentally nothing left of the Green Deal" – admitted Julia Christian of Fern's forest conservation organization in an interview with "Guardian". Have those who so zealously dismantled the Green Deal for financial or ideological reasons explained to the young how they will prosper in the planet in which they will come expected warming at 2.7 degrees CElsius – i.e. almost twice the mark of the Paris Agreement? The fresh agreement reached at the COP28 summit on reducing fossil fuel production has proved to be ‘dangerously insufficient’ and ‘incoherent’.
Do governments so have the right to wonder Young people rebelBecause they can't accept specified disappointing developments? In response, the authorities do not propose dialog but hotel to suppressing pro-climate demonstrations. The British capital police, in consequence to a request made under the free access procedure, revealed that between 2021 and 1922 members of the following climate and educational groups have been arrested: Extinction Rebellion, Ocean Rebellion, Coal Action Network, Right to Roam, Earth First, Youth Strike 4 Climate, Rising Tide, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, run for atomic Disarmament, Burning Pink, Tree Defenders, Fossil Free, Just halt Oil, Insulate Britain, and HS2 Rebellion (this is simply a movement against the construction of high-speed HS2).
Budget cuts in the EU affecting discipline and higher education are equally significant. How will future generations cope with pandemics, floods and cyber wars without appropriate education? How will they cope with global competition in the modern arms race? Does our leaders think that vaccines grow on trees? Do they think the courts will be able to do their occupation without lawyers? And the microchips will grow like mushrooms after the rain without the engagement of engineers who know about semiconductors? If not, then why is the European Council, representing 27 EU countries, proposed to cut the budget by EUR 1,52 billion for flagship projects, including the investigation and innovation programme Horizon Europe and supporting mobility among Erasmus+ students?
In the draft Polish budget, the fresh (pro-European) government predicted the lowest backing for discipline and higher education in this century. The fresh Dutch government (eurosceptic) has proposed cuts in the investigation and discipline budget of €1.1 billion and the abolition of the National improvement Fund, from which investigation and improvement are financed. The budget for higher education in the Netherlands will be EUR 215 million cut annually. So it seems that pro-European and anti-European politicians have yet found something that connects them in the interests of younger generations.
Instead of gathering the basic expectations of young people, politicians make fictional institutions that simply imitate youth programmes. Finland has set up a peculiar office whose competence is to oversee the long-term application of adopted policies and to make green, long-term reasoning among policy makers. Hungary has had a spokesperson for future generations for any time. A fresh EU Commissioner for Intergenerational Justice, Youth, Culture and athletics will besides be appointed. The possible value of these initiatives should not be undermined in advance, but organization machinations will barely break the iron regulation of democracy.
If governments propose to rise taxes to reduce public debt, voters will remove them from power. Politicians who effort to ban the usage of diesel vehicles are afraid of truck drivers, taxi drivers and tractors – not children who have not yet been born. Investments in long-term projects aimed at improving public housing and education propose the request for cuts in another areas, specified as salaries and pensions, to service the modern electorate. The alternate is the swelling debt – and that's why we're going around in circles. Does anyone believe that the fresh EU Commissioner for Intergenerational Justice, Youth, Culture and athletics will change these rules of the game? I bet he's better off promoting sporting events than working for intergenerational justice.
That is why I anticipate to see a increasing conflict between the younger and older generation in the coming years, not only in Parliaments but besides in European streets. But this is not necessarily a bad thing – in the end, real political changes require a crucial degree of public mobilisation. The 1968 student protests did not accomplish their revolutionary assumptions, but surely shook the full system. It is hard to imagine that many of the reforms introduced in the 1970s (from household law to education) could be pushed distant if young people did not take the streets.
However, erstwhile specified protests are destructive and do not offer constructive solutions, there may be chaos that will draw many victims and 1 of them can become democracy. Where we encounter a democratic vacuum, possibly the title of the celebrated Coen brothers' movie will actually work, so I call on generations no longer young to halt reasoning about themselves.
The text is simply a joint publication of magazines Social Europe and IPS-Journal. From English she translated Dorota Blabolil-Obrębska.
