Showing how deep the disaffection with politics has become, with 64 percent of those under 25 unemployed because of crushing austerity measures, 47 percent of Greece’s young said they won’t even vote anymore and won’t go to the polls in next May’s European Parliament elections.
That is far lower than their peers in the other 26 European Union countries, according to the latest statistics fro Eurobarometer which measures trends in the region. Some 30 percent of Greeks under the age of 30 said they were not interested in the elections or the political debate on a European level, while just 53 percent said they would cast votes next year.
This compares to 18 percent of young people being disinterested as an EU average and 64 percent saying they will vote. The main reason for young Greeks not voting is that they think their choice will not change anything, with 74 percent saying it doesn’t make any difference who wins or is in power because it will not help them.
Polls last year showed that 70 percent of young Greeks had already given up on their country and were looking for jobs and a new life abroad, many of them among the most educated and talented who have been stifled by a system with holds down original thinkers and those with initiative in favor of those who follow orders and a political pecking order.
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