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Every few years, Europe gears up for another round of elections. Posters, slogans, the usual promises. And every few years, adults repeat the same line: “Young people don’t care about politics.” From where I’m standing, that feels like the biggest misunderstanding in the whole debate.

Because if you actually sit with Maltese teenagers in a school hall, or chat with 20-year-olds grabbing a late-night burger in Gżira, you’ll find that young people talk about politics constantly, just not in the way older generations expect.

We talk about rent we’ll never be able to afford, feeling disconnected from decision-making, the climate crisis creeping into our summers, our right to mental health support, our education system, the roads we walk on. It’s all political. We just don’t always see ourselves in the narrow version of politics presented to us.

In Malta, civic education exists, but it rarely gives young people what they actually need.

We learn how institutions work on paper, not how to navigate them, influence them, or meaningfully question them. And by the time we enter the voting booth for the first time, many of us still feel like outsiders to a world that insists on being complicated.

Then there’s the culture. Maltese politics is loud, tribal, and exhausting. It sometimes feels like the country expects you to choose a side before you even know what side means.

What would make us show up? Three answers keep coming up.

Whenever I ask Maltese friends what would actually make them participate more, the responses are pretty consistent:

  1. Talk to us like we matter now, not in 20 years.
    Young people are tired of being treated as future citizens. We live in the present too. We want politicians to stop talking about youth and start talking with youth. That means platforms where young people aren’t symbolic guests, but co-decision makers.
  2. Give us transparency, not polished speeches.
    We grew up in the age of screenshots, leaked chats, and broken trust. If politicians want young people to vote, they need to stop assuming we’ll accept things at face value. We notice the small stuff. We care about integrity and authenticity wins where spin fails.
  3. Make participation less overwhelming
    Not everyone wants to join a political party or sit through a three-hour committee meeting. Young people want flexible, accessible, creative forms of engagement: pop-up consultations at unis, digital platforms that actually work, community labs, and real feedback that doesn’t disappear into a void.

If Malta and the EU want young people to participate more, they need to stop framing participation as a favour we owe to democracy, and start treating it as a right that democracy owes to us. That means rewriting the relationship entirely: youth councils with real mandates, participatory budgeting for young people, co-created policies, and a political culture where questioning is welcomed.

And honestly? If leaders actually gave young people space, trust, and responsibility I think they’d be surprised by how many of us would show up, because we’d finally feel like we’re walking into a system that was built with us in mind, rather than one we were simply expected to adopt.

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