Eugenias: the Spanish digital creators who seek to mobilize the young vote in the European elections.

Madrid – Amaia, Cristina and María are the EUgenias, three young journalists specialized in the EU and now digital creators with a clear goal: to mobilize the vote of their generation in the European elections of June so that the issues that concern them are discussed and to increase their representation in the institutions.

All three recipients of the Schuman scholarship, which allows internships in the European Parliament, and with careers linked to European information, Amaia Echevarría, Cristina Gallego, and María Moya started by sharing memes about the EU for pure fun in a WhatsApp group they created.

From that group, called EUgenias, was born the digital project that they have launched with the intention of reaching the youth of their generation, who “unfortunately” often take for granted the existence of the EU and the benefits of belonging to it, explains Moya to EFE.

“In the language we speak every day”, on Instagram and TikTok accounts, “what we do is create content about the EU based on the ‘trends’ that we see and that amuse us”, adds Moya.

“What we do is take memes, ‘trends’ or songs that are fashionable and think about how we can adapt it to EU content, and we always come up with a thousand ideas”, summarizes Gallego.

Furthermore, they have partnered with Polétika, a non-profit platform of organizations and civil society movements, to run a campaign aimed at encouraging young people to vote in the next European elections on 9th of June.

Gallego is optimistic about the mobilization for these elections, although he warns that there is “a lack of voting intention” especially among women.

This year the European elections do not coincide with any other electoral call in Spain, as has happened other times, and that gives “a bit of fear” in terms of the participation that may be, according to Gallego, because many citizens see the EU as something distant.

But the EU “is not that far, more than half of the rules we have in Spain come from Brussels”, argues Gallego.

In the same vein, Echevarría says that the contents they develop about Spanish laws that come from the EU usually “awaken a lot of interest”, like “the one with the tethered cap” to plastic bottles, which comes from a European directive to promote the circular economy.

“We want to promote young vote because young people are underrepresented in the European institutions” and “we have big concerns that we want to be on the table” on issues such as housing, labor insertion, and environmental protection, states Echevarría.

According to her, these issues are not addressed in part because “they are not part of the direct competences” that the EU has and also because there is a lack of a youth perspective in decision-making -the average age of the MEPs of this legislature is 52 years-.

“As the European Parliament says, ‘if you don’t vote, others will vote for you'”, Echevarría reminds. (May 20)