The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, called on young people in Zagreb on Monday to get more involved in politics, stressing that the times when it was not necessary to oppose populism and misinformation had passed.

Metsola answered questions from secondary school and university students at the Academy of Music of the University of Zagreb. She spoke of her political journey from her early days as an activist to becoming the President of the European Parliament in January 2022, only the third woman in history to hold that position.

The 44-year-old Maltese politician ran for the first time in the European elections as a 24-year-old, at the suggestion of the then Maltese prime minister who had thought there were not enough young people and women in politics.

She entered the parliament in her third attempt.

If you want to be a member of the parliament, don’t give up, said the President of the EP, who comes from the smallest member of the European Union.

It’s not the size of the country that matters, but the size of ideas, you can be from anywhere, she stressed.

Metsola also spoke of the referendum on her country’s accession to the EU and the strong campaign of “disinformation” and “spreading fear” by those who opposed it – in the end, Malta was in favour of joining with only 53.65% votes, and the country joined the EU in 2004.

With another European Parliament election a little less than a year away, Metsola called on young people to oppose those who spread misinformation.

“Today, my answer is – fight. We haven’t fought for a long time, we thought that whatever happened, the majority would be constructive, but that is no longer the case,” she warned.

The key is to prevent the interference of third countries, to emphasise the benefits that the EU has brought to European citizens, to communicate in a simple and honest way, she said.

In the European elections in 2024, 16-year-olds will be able to vote in four member-countries, including Malta.

Metsola stressed that she supports the idea of lowering the voting age as voting is not only a privilege but a duty.

She underlined the importance of remembering that many people in the world do not have the right to vote or their votes are not valid as they live in societies that are not fully democratic.

Metsola believes that 16-year-olds can also be candidates in elections, which, she says, is not easy but is possible.

“When I was young, I hated when an old politician like myself today said that young people are the future,” she said. “I would tell them, ‘I am here now’, we are not the future, we are the present.”

She underlined the importance of involving young people in the process of making decisions that concern them.

She also said that some of the most successful members of the European Parliament are young and that she regrets decisions such as the one on Brexit, made with a low voting turnout among young people.

“Young people did not vote. Their grandfathers did,” she said in a comment on the UK’s decision to leave the EU, mentioning also a low turnout among young people at French elections.

“On the other hand, it was young people that tipped the scales in the referendum on Malta’s EU accession in favour of accession,” she said a year before the 20th anniversary of Malta’s EU membership.