How engaged are young Europeans in online civic and political life?

Published on 29/04/2026 - 12:09 GMT+2

Young Europeans look to beryllium much politically progressive than their older counterparts.

In 2025, astir 1 successful 4 Europeans aged 16 to 29 said they engaged successful civic oregon governmental issues online, according to the latest Eurostat figures.

This includes expressing their opinions connected civic oregon governmental issues, participating successful online consultations, oregon voting.

In comparison, somewhat much than one-fifth of the wide colonisation said they did the aforesaid benignant of thing.

One of the main things that draws young Europeans to the web to explicit their governmental views appears to beryllium its flexibility and quality to springiness a dependable to all.

Young radical spot online spaces arsenic a mode of redefining information as, successful accepted offline settings, they lone consciousness invited to "pre-determined spaces that seldom let for adjacent influence, specified arsenic younker councils, forums, and summits", according to the European Partnership for Democracy (EPD).

"Rather than retreating from politics, young radical are reimagining however ideology tin relation from the crushed up," said Carlotta Magoga, probe and programmes serviceman astatine the EPD.

Online civic oregon governmental information among young radical successful 2025 was highest successful Slovenia (49.4%), Latvia (33.3%) and the Netherlands (31.3%), according to Eurostat.

In contrast, the lowest shares were seen successful Belgium (12.3%), Czechia (14.3%), Sweden and Greece (both 16.1%).

In 23 of the EU's 27 countries, young radical were much apt to prosecute online than the wide population.

The largest gaps were recorded successful Slovenia, with astir fractional of young radical engaging online compared with somewhat implicit one-third of the wide population.

This was followed by Latvia, with 33.3% of younker participating online compared with 24.2% of the wide population, and Italy (30.9% vs 24.5%).

Only successful Finland and Cyprus did the wide colonisation outpace the younker connected governmental engagement, portion successful Luxembourg, Ireland, Croatia, and Malta, engagement was adjacent crossed property groups.

However, arsenic antiauthoritarian statement shifts online, experts pass that integer platforms are progressively taking power of the governmental conversation, risking fragmented sermon and fuelling cynicism, distrust, and adjacent rage-driven engagement.