Citizens ask candidates for the 2024 European elections

Bocholt (PID). The Europa-Union NRW organised the election arena as an exciting format in the run-up to the European elections in various cities in NRW. These events are supported by the state of NRW. In Bocholt, the election arena took place on 17 May 2024 in the "Zur Glocke" restaurant. The event was well received.

The event was hosted by Peter W. Wahl, District Chairman of Bocholt and also Chairman of the state association. He explained the concept of the format to the guests and encouraged them to put questions to the candidates for the 10th European Parliament. Some first-time voters also visited the election arena that evening.

It remained unclear almost until the end of the event who was appearing on the individual dates. This is part of the concept of the format.

Before the candidates appeared, visitors were presented with questions and answers from the Europa-Union NRW's election test questions. This was followed by a voting process in which those present were allowed to guess which party the next guest would belong to. The result of the vote allowed the politicians to recognise the extent to which they had given recognisable answers to the positions of their own parties. The phase in the presence of the candidates now belonged almost exclusively to the voters, who were able to use their questions to test the steadfastness of the candidates.

The policy areas asked by the citizens centred on migration, agriculture, debt, education, building law and energy policy, as well as individual questions from citizens to politicians.

Due to the special concept of the election arena, anyone and everyone can have their say and thus participate in the event. The guests took away interesting insights from the event. Everyone has until 9 June to think about who they want to vote for ... unless they have already voted by postal ballot", said Sonja Wießmeier from EUROPE DIRECT Bocholt, with whom the Europa-Union Bocholt e.V. and the Europa-Union NRW cooperated.