A Voting Advice Application for all Europeans

From the 6th till the 9th of June, citizens across Europe cast their vote to elect the Parliament of the European Union. Millions of those voters will use a so-called Voting Advice Application (VAA) to help them in their voting decision - to see which party matches their political preferences, or to see what parties actually promise. But, what distinguishes a good VAA? And how can you best use it? 

In this episode, Vincent talks to two guests that have developed the EU&I Voting Application, which is a Pan-European VAA developed by the European University Institute.

Meet the guestsFor the first time in Radio Vinternational, I interviewed two guests! 

The first is Andres Reiljan. He is a political scientist and currently has a position at the European University Institute as a Max Weber Fellow. He is the Project co-leader of the EU&I voting application. 

My other guest is Angeliki Xafi. She is a communication strategist, and is currently a trainee at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies. She is the Communications assistant of the project, and has done her master at the International Hellenistic University. 

Recommendation of the week 

Obviously, the most important recommendation of the guests was: use the EU&I application! However, both did emphasise something else - which was a bit contradicting…  

• Andres urges all of you to not just focus on the ‘final result’ of the EU&I, but  to really dive into the answers that parties give. If you take some time, you can cross-validate what different European parties want. If you like to play around with election data and visualisations, you’ll have a great time! 
• Angeliki stresses the exact opposite: there are numerous ways you can be updated on elections and political preferences, simply by following the right social media pages. These can be a great source of information, especially if your time is limited. The EU&I, for example, regularly post snippets on the election and the party preferences on their social media accounts. 

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In each episode of Radio Vinternational, host Vincent Hoffmans dives into one fascinating and hopefully informative international topic with a passionate expert. The mission is to showcase original and interesting perspectives on actual and historic international affairs, and to have fun!