Next Gen EU Parliament: Interviews with young MEPs
720 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) were elected in June 2024; among these, 36 were young MEPs under 35 years old after the election. We focused specifically on communicating about the newly elected members of Parliament for the coming cycle.Â
As a pan-European youth organisation, we work to amplify youth voices in decision-making. We therefore wanted to hear from the young European parliamentarians and ask them about key topics that are relevant for young people around the continent.
We therefore listed all MEPs under 35 and contacted all to ask to join for an interview on topics of environment and climate change, youth participation, green jobs and education. Out of 36 MEPs contacted, 8 of them responded to the request for an interview and were all provided with the same set of questions they could answer. Below you will find the answers to the interview questions by the 8 young MEPs who chose to participate and their short bio.
Environmental protection and climate action
MEP Peter-Hansen prioritises achieving an ambitious 2040 climate goal and ensuring all EU climate legislation aligns with the Paris Agreement. She calls for increased investments in renewable energy and measures to phase out fossil fuels as part of Europe’s clean energy transition.
Another key focus is banning harmful chemicals in everyday products to protect human health and the environment. She also advocates for stronger risk and hazard assessments to address the long-term effects of chemical use.
Her overarching aim is to align the EU’s climate policies with international agreements while addressing harmful substances that threaten human health and biodiversity.
Climate protection and sustainable regional development are central to MEP Repp’s work, particularly in rural regions like Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony-Anhalt, and the Baltic Sea. She focuses on combining climate protection with regional development, ensuring that investments in renewable energy, sustainable technologies, and modern infrastructure strengthen rural areas while creating jobs and securing their future.
A strong advocate for sustainable agriculture and fisheries, she supports scientifically based catch quotas, expanded marine protection areas, and reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy to reduce pesticide use and promote organic farming. These efforts align with her goal of creating a green transformation that benefits the environment and local communities.
She backs ambitious EU climate targets, including a 2040 emissions reduction target, and highlights the importance of socially just transition through tools like the Just Transition Fund and Social Climate Fund. MEP Repp works to ensure rural areas contribute to and benefit from the EU’s climate neutrality goals.
As a member of the ENVI Committee, MEP Ridel views Europe as the ideal place to address climate change, which she believes is spiralling out of control. She places significant emphasis on protecting biodiversity, warns against the ongoing sixth mass extinction, and highlights the role of nature in combating the climate crisis.
MEP Ridel is committed to fighting environmental disinformation, which threatens public debate, especially on social media. She stresses the importance of protecting scientists from fake news and online violence and recommends exploring Quota Climat’s work for insights.
Her efforts extend to opposing the criminalisation of environmental activists, such as Paul Watson. She considers protecting activists vital for maintaining momentum in preserving a habitable planet.
MEP Schilling is focused on protecting the European Green Deal, particularly against efforts by conservative forces to undermine it. They advocate for ambitious climate targets, calling for a 90–95% reduction in emissions by 2040, as recommended by the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change.
She emphasises that politics happens beyond parliaments, advocating for greater grassroots engagement and bridging the gap between politics and citizens. Protecting the Green Deal and implementing ambitious climate laws are top priorities.
MEP Schilling also stresses the importance of ensuring the green transition is socially just. To meet the EU’s Fit for 55 goals, transformative changes across the transport, industry, and energy sectors are needed.
MEP Scuderi emphasises the need for a holistic industrial policy that goes beyond decarbonisation to address biodiversity loss, deforestation, and soil degradation. She argues that focusing narrowly on emissions risks perpetuating superficial solutions while ignoring systemic environmental crises.
Her vision includes integrating biodiversity and natural resource conservation into industrial strategies to prevent past mistakes and create sustainable change. She prioritises re-industrialising nations to produce tools for the energy transition, ensuring clean energy access and job creation.
Scuderi also advocates for community involvement in renewable energy projects through energy citizenship and shared governance. By fostering local support, she aims to accelerate the adoption of renewables and ensure equitable benefits from the transition.
MEP Strolenberg’s primary focus within the Agriculture Committee is transitioning toward more plant-based agriculture to reduce reliance on animal-based products. This transition has multiple benefits, including lower greenhouse gas emissions, healthier diets for Europeans, reduced soil degradation caused by livestock waste, and improved resilience to climate-related challenges such as floods and droughts. She strongly advocates for crop diversification, viewing it as essential to building a more climate-resilient agricultural sector.
In practical terms, MEP Strolenberg has questioned the Agriculture Commissioner about crop diversification targets for 2026. Although the response was disappointing, she welcomed the promise to update the EU protein strategy. She is now collaborating with NGOs, scientists, and parliamentary colleagues to build a coalition and develop a detailed plan for advancing this transition.
She emphasises the lack of specific greenhouse gas reduction targets for the agricultural sector, which she considers essential for achieving the EU’s climate neutrality goals. MEP Strolenberg plans to advocate for such targets, potentially through a future reform of the Emissions Trading System.
Environmental protection is a core priority for MEP Sieper, a member of the TRAN Committee. He is committed to green mobility and promotes electric vehicles, improves public transport, and advances green freight solutions. His vision includes a unified European public transport system with integrated ticketing across borders, which he views as one of the most impactful and easily implemented climate solutions.
He also champions the energy transition, with a strong focus on scaling renewable energy sources such as water, wind, and solar power. A particular priority is the renewal and expansion of Europe’s solar industry, which he believes is crucial for a sustainable future.
MEP Sieper is deeply committed to environmental protection. He emphasises the importance of reforestation and establishing animal protection zones free from human interference. He believes harming ecosystems directly harms biodiversity and creates wider-reaching environmental impacts.
MEP Vieira sees environmental protection as inseparable from her work on the Trade and Human Rights Committees. She prioritises ensuring that partnerships with third countries provide mutual benefits in sustainable development, focusing on resources needed for Europe’s energy and climate transition. MEP Vieira highlights the importance of redirecting trade investments to support climate action and the energy transition while protecting environmental defenders from harm. Her integrated approach links trade, human rights, and environmental priorities.
She also emphasises the interconnection between human rights and environmental protection and advocates for the rights of environmental defenders. Many NGOs approach her about addressing human rights issues outside the EU, and she is committed to bringing environmental concerns into these discussions.
Youth participation
MEP Peter-Hansen fosters youth participation through social media channels, where she collects input and ideas from young people. She also conducts workshops and lectures with Danish school groups visiting the Parliament. Open to new approaches, she actively seeks ways to further engage youth voices.
MEP Repp is dedicated to ensuring youth voices shape EU policymaking. She champions initiatives like youth parliaments and mentorship programs to empower young people and supports a Youth Check to ensure EU policies reflect their concerns.
Repp actively connects with young people through school tours, political education programs, and digital platforms, making the EU accessible and relatable. She collaborates with youth organisations to gather input and promote opportunities for active engagement. Her goal is to create a Europe where young people feel represented and involved in shaping their future.
MEP Ridel created a group of young MEPs within the Socialists & Democrats group, a first in the European Parliament. This group focuses on representing the expectations of younger generations and influencing the political faction’s positions.
She strongly advocates for lowering the voting age to 16, citing its success in Belgium and expressing a desire to expand this measure across the EU. She views this reform as essential to empowering young people and amplifying their voices in public debate.
MEP Schilling prioritises amplifying youth perspectives, which are often overlooked in policymaking. As a young MEP, she emphasises the importance of directly engaging with young people to ensure their concerns are represented.
Her primary focus is climate justice. She advocates for protecting ecosystems and biodiversity to secure a sustainable future for young generations. Schilling connects environmental priorities with broader social concerns, such as affordable transport, housing, and food, stressing the need for an equitable green transition.
By participating in panels and discussions, she strives to include young voices in negotiations and policy processes, ensuring meaningful participation rather than token representation.
MEP Strolenberg integrates youth perspectives into her policymaking by engaging directly with young people, including young farmers, to understand their concerns. She believes in the importance of involving women in the green and just transition, emphasising that education is the starting point. Her party applies a youth test to all policies, assessing their impact on future generations to ensure inclusivity and long-term thinking.
MEP Sieper has outlined four key priorities to enhance youth participation:
- Improving Education: He emphasises the need for better education systems, particularly in Germany, where 16 state-level variations complicate the unified system. MEP Sieper is advocating through his European office to address these challenges and promote new courses on democracy and political systems, as well as digital competencies.
- Erasmus+: He strongly supports Erasmus+, which he considers the best program for fostering diversity. Concerned about potential budget cuts proposed by the Council, he is determined to advocate for increased funding through his committee.
- Promoting Transparency: MEP Sieper is committed to transparency by uploading all his interactions on YouTube. He requires that any lobbyist requesting a meeting with him agrees to a transparency clause he has established, namely being filmed and uploaded on YouTube during the interaction.
- Democratic Participation: He actively engages his community in decision-making processes, such as using Instagram to gather opinions on whether Ursula von der Leyen should serve a second term. He also involves German citizens in drafting his priorities and strategy to ensure their voices shape his program.
MEP Vieira gave four priorities for youth participation
- Diversity: MEP Vieira values diversity and is pleased to see greater representation of different age groups within the Green Party and across the Parliament.
- Climate: She is committed to advancing climate policies that protect current and future generations. MEP Vieira will fight in the Parliament to maintain and expand its ambition on climate matters.
- Fighting for rights and freedoms: She ensures young people are active in the fight for human rights, decent living conditions, standing against racism and sexism, and protecting the rights of LGBTQIA+ people.
Green jobs
MEP Peter-Hansen highlights the importance of involving schools and preparing training programs to equip young people with the new skills needed for the green transition. She stresses that education systems must align with the demands of a greener economy to ensure the workforce is future-ready.
MEP Repp focuses on expanding access to vocational training, higher education, and lifelong learning to enable young people to participate in the green transformation. She emphasises the development of green and digital skills while advocating for linking the European Education Area, Higher Education Area, and Research and Innovation Area to provide quality education and lifelong learning opportunities.
She champions initiatives like Erasmus+ and the European Solidarity Corps, working to make them more inclusive and accessible, especially for young people in rural areas. In regional development, she advocates for the “right to stay” concept by investing in local job opportunities, sustainable infrastructure, and high-quality education in less-developed areas. Repp believes that fostering regional growth will empower young people to contribute to the green and digital transitions, strengthening social cohesion and equal opportunities across Europe.
MEP Scuderi prioritises creating quality jobs for young people, emphasising that reindustrialisation can drive stable and better-paid employment. She calls for banning unpaid internships to ensure equitable access to the job market, which aligns with their work as shadow rapporteurs on related initiatives.
She focuses on addressing the skills transition, supporting both workers already in the workforce and marginalised groups, such as young people, women, racialised individuals, and people with disabilities. By taking an intersectional approach, she aims to ensure opportunities reach all groups, fostering equity in the green economy.
Scuderi also links tackling climate challenges with creating a better future for youth. On housing, she advocates for affordable and sustainable housing solutions, including building more social housing, renovating vulnerable homes for energy efficiency, and reducing financial speculation in the housing market. For young people, access to sustainable housing is integral to a fair and just transition.
MEP Strolenberg emphasises the importance of equipping young people with the skills and tools needed to actively participate in the Just Transition through education. She advocates for organising youth citizens’ assemblies to involve young people more directly in policymaking and ensure their input shapes the green transition.
Environmental education
MEP Peter-Hansen engages with citizens, especially young people, through social media, lectures, and talks. She prioritises educating young visitors to the Parliament and sharing insights about the EU’s environmental goals and policies. Her work focuses on achieving climate neutrality by 2050, with renewable energy as a top priority. She emphasises creating an economy that works for people and nature over corporate interests, using her leadership role in the Greens/EFA group to drive these efforts.
As part of her commitment to supporting young people, MEP Repp integrates environmental education into broader youth initiatives. She focuses on making education and mobility more accessible, with plans to expand Erasmus+ and increase its budget to €56 billion by 2028. She also aims to strengthen the European Solidarity Corps, which fosters social cohesion and supports environmental and social projects.
Repp highlights the importance of engaging young people politically through youth parliaments and youth organisations, which provide positive perspectives to counter right-wing ideologies. She sees education and environmental awareness as integral to equipping a generation to tackle future challenges.
MEP Schilling views politics as a societal activity and emphasises the urgency of addressing the climate crisis through education and communication. She stresses that the transition must be socially just and that desirable and meaningful green jobs must be created.
Schilling highlights the importance of communicating the positive outcomes of climate action, such as improved public transport and affordable travel options, which not only combat climate change but also enhance quality of life. By focusing on these benefits, she aims to make the transition more relatable and widely supported.
MEP Scuderi reflects on key victories in the climate fight, including securing ambitious emission reduction targets, but stresses that implementation and education are critical next steps. She highlights the need for substantial investment in the energy transition and advocates for framing arguments around competitiveness and convenience to counter opposition.
Scuderi also emphasises the importance of engaging citizens through accessible narratives, arguing that environmental education and awareness are essential for achieving sustainability and global competitiveness.
MEP Strolenberg promotes environmental awareness and education by engaging with young people and NGOs within and outside the Parliament. She prioritises including youth voices in policymaking and actively uses social media to amplify her advocacy efforts, ensuring broad engagement and visibility.
MEP Sieper acknowledges that climate awareness already exists but emphasises the importance of bringing all generations on board. He values strong partnerships with civil society organisations and focuses on educating people about local opportunities to foster engagement. While global problems require global solutions, he highlights the importance of local perspectives to inspire fresh approaches. MEP Sieper remains committed to advocating his convictions at the Commission to achieve concrete progress.
MEP Vieira believes that effective communication is key to fostering environmental education. To stay informed about developments outside the Parliament, she dedicates 35% of her time to meeting with knowledgeable individuals, including representatives from civil society organisations. Her approach centres on amplifying the voices of those who voted for her and ensuring their perspectives are reflected in her work.
European Degree
MEP Repp fully supports the EU Council’s goal of establishing a European Degree to ensure the uniform recognition of higher education qualifications across Europe. She views this initiative as vital for enhancing student mobility and creating equal opportunities for young people to study and work throughout the EU.
Repp advocates for strengthening initiatives like the European Universities Initiative, which fosters collaboration between universities and businesses to align curricula and qualifications. She also supports the full implementation of the European Education Area, which promotes the recognition of qualifications, skills, and learning periods across borders, ensuring equal access for students from diverse educational backgrounds.
To make the European Degree more inclusive, Repp highlights the importance of integrating non-formal and informal learning into the recognition system. This approach would ensure that all types of education and training are acknowledged, further advancing accessibility and inclusivity for students across Europe.
Erasmus+
MEP Peter-Hansen sees Erasmus+ as an important tool for cultural exchange and friendship. In her view, it helps young people learn about European culture and build lasting relationships. She strongly supports the program’s mission and its potential to connect young Europeans.
MEP Repp is deeply committed to Erasmus+, which she recognizes as a crucial tool for mobility, intercultural understanding, and equal education opportunities across Europe. As part of the S&D group, she advocates for doubling the program’s funding to €56 billion for the 2028-2034 period.
Inclusivity is a key focus for Repp, as she works to make Erasmus+ more accessible to disadvantaged and rural youth while reducing administrative barriers. She also aims to integrate sustainability and digital skills into the program, ensuring it prepares young Europeans for future challenges. By strengthening Erasmus+, Repp seeks to foster a more connected, resilient, and united EU.
MEP Ridel expresses concern over potential cuts to the Erasmus+ budget and calls such developments regrettable. In response, the French delegation in the European Parliament launched a communication campaign and petition to protect the program’s funding. Ridel pledges to fight to preserve and support Erasmus+ throughout the next five years to ensure it remains a pillar of European education and cultural exchange.
MEP Scuderi emphasises the need to strengthen and restructure Erasmus+ to enhance youth participation across Europe. She advocates for increased funding and direct support to national and local organizations, particularly in countries where youth participation is undervalued or underfunded.
Scuderi highlights the political challenges faced by youth organisations, particularly in countries where far-right governments interfere with funding. To address this, she proposes direct EU funding for youth councils to prevent political bias and ensure consistent support across member states. Her ultimate goal is to tackle systemic inequities and ensure that Erasmus+ provides equitable opportunities for young people, enabling them to actively shape their future regardless of their background or country of origin.
MEP Sieper strongly supports Erasmus+, which he views as the best program for fostering diversity and intercultural understanding. Concerned about potential budget cuts proposed by the Council, he is committed to advocating for increased funding through his committee to ensure the program continues to meet its goals.
Future Generations
MEP Repp emphasises the importance of appointing a Commissioner for Intergenerational Justice to address challenges different generations face. She strongly supports Commissioner Glenn Micallef, highlighting his shared vision as a Social Democrat and his unique perspective as the youngest member of the Commission. MEP Repp praises his commitment to including young people in decision-making processes and developing policies with their input, particularly in areas such as intergenerational justice, education, skills development, mental health, youth employment, and mobility programs like Erasmus+ and the European Voluntary Service.
Repp stresses the need for collective action between young and older generations to tackle pressing challenges like climate change, social inequality, and digital transformation. She advocates for mutual understanding and cooperation across age groups to achieve solutions that benefit all and foster a more inclusive Europe.
Regarding Micallef’s mission, Repp identifies his focus on centralising youth issues in EU policy-making as essential. She suggests he engage closely with youth organisations, promote cooperation on topics such as youth employment and mental health, and strengthen the EU youth strategy. She underscores the importance of providing Micallef with the tools and resources necessary to succeed in his role, emphasising his competence, passion, and commitment to youth well-being and intergenerational fairness.
MEP Peter-Hansen strongly supports the concept of intergenerational fairness, emphasising the need to ensure that future generations inherit a planet in better condition than the one we received. She views the role of a Commissioner for Intergenerational Fairness as a valuable initiative, provided it is equipped with the right tools and responsibilities.
However, Peter-Hansen cautions that this role must not become a symbolic title with an empty portfolio or act as a substitute for a green Commissioner. During the confirmation hearings, she plans to use her platform to ask critical questions about the Commissioner’s focus, such as whether their priority will be safeguarding the interests of future generations or addressing the concerns of older people.
Profiles
Kira Marie Peter-Hansen
Sabrina Repp
Chloé Ridel
Lena Schilling
Benedetta Scuderi
Anna Strolenberg
Lukas Sieper
Catarina Viera
Our mission
YEE aims to unite environmental youth non-profit organisations in Europe in order to enhance international cooperation, increase knowledge about the climate crisis, raise awareness of environmental problems and to strengthen participation of youth in environmental decision-making.
Financially supported by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Council of Europe.
