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On June 9 and September 6, important elections will determine the direction of the European Union, the federal states in Germany, and some local districts and cities for the next few years. A dizzying spectrum of 35 parties are on the ballot for the EU election next week, from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) to the far-left Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD), and everything in between. Read more here: www.bpb.de/themen/parteien/wer-steht-zur-wahl/europawahl-2024/ (in German).   Left: A light pole with election posters in the city of Potsdam, southwest of Berlin. Right: The ballot in Germany for the EU election, which lists all 35 parties. Voters can only vote for one party. To get young voters interested in politics and to help them understand current topics in the regions as well as the positions of each party, the Parkclub, a youth club in Fürstenwalde, a town of about 25,000 people southeast of Berlin, organized a series of four events between late April and mid May. In the first event, experts discussed and explained (in German) some pressing topics in the region, and in the following three events representatives on the ballot for the EU, state, or local elections explained their positions and priorities.  Source: YouTube I was invited as one of those experts, to talk about challenges and current topics in agriculture in the region, all of which are driven more or less by climate change: biodiversity loss, agri-PV, digitalization and robotics, and the development of new agricultural products and shorter value and supply chains. Another expert, a professor from TH Wildau, a local university of applied science, talked about transportation and infrastructure issues. The idea was to avoid the common combination of scientist and policy maker, and to deliver explainers to current issues before discussing and arguing over positions and priorities of the different parties. The vibe certainly was a lot more relaxed in our session compared to the following ones, which I was not sad about. This format - a panel discussion with a live audience that was also live-streamed to Youtube and posted there for posterity - was new for me and a bit nerve-wracking, despite the chill atmosphere. But in the end, the event went very smoothly, thanks also to lots of preparation on my part to some guiding questions, which the moderator had sent us ahead of time.
Was it a success? I'll let you be the judge of that (the discussion is in German, unfortunately): www.youtube.com/live/8ngWuNH-xR4?si=RmlcYQ9dhxPe83Xx&t=56 |
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