N-VA: “The right to vote comes with duties and individual responsibility”

The first hearings on the Vivaldi parties’ bill to lower the voting age to 16 for the European elections were held in the House yesterday, with Kristof Calvo (Groen party) as its main advocate. It is an idea the N-VA is not keen on. “Voting rights are part of the coming-of-age package, a package full of rights, but also duties and individual responsibility,” say MPs Wim Van der Donckt and Sander Loones.

Wim Van der Donckt clarifies: “There are good reasons why almost no European Member State allows voting from the age of 16. This is currently only possible in Austria and Malta. The legal age of majority and the right to vote are therefore inextricably linked for us. Voting rights are part of the coming-of-age package, a package full of rights, but also duties and individual responsibility, which allows you, as an 18-year-old, to participate fully in society, from criminal liability to getting married, from renting accommodation to participating in the democratic and political process.”

Symbolic discussion

Sander Loones joins in: “Perhaps the Vivaldi government should first deal with the exploding national debt, the deficits that this government keeps piling up, the lack of pension reforms, and so on. It is namely the young people who will have to bear this debt for the rest of their lives. Let us finally take young people seriously by tackling these major challenges. And not by limiting ourselves Vivaldi-like to symbolic measures.