As the bloc's institutions celebrate French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman's presentation of the eponymous declaration 74 years ago, MEPs air their concerns over the union's future political makeup one month before the June elections.
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00:00 As European Union institutions mark the bloc's embryonic founding with Europe Day,
00:05 they are also preparing themselves for the 2024 EU elections, which are less than four weeks away.
00:11 The EU's achievements were celebrated in member state capitals 74 years after French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman's historic speech
00:19 that led to the political and economic union's founding.
00:22 Citizens were invited to visit EU institutions to celebrate, with European parliaments in Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg opening their doors to the public.
00:31 Outside of Brussels' European Parliament, 18-year-old German Carlo Walter says all young people should vote.
00:37 "It is important to me that I can vote, because we are young people, me and my generation, we are the future of Europe.
00:48 And then our opinion counts for what will happen in the future."
00:53 The election could be one of the most consequential in history, shaped by the war in Ukraine, climate emergencies and fundamental questions of the bloc itself.
01:01 Inside European Parliament, Italian MEP Nicola Procaccini says the current composition of the European Parliament swings too far left,
01:09 and the upcoming elections could redistribute the scales.
01:12 "What I would like to see? Obviously something new, something different, a new balance in the parliament,
01:23 because for now it's too on the left. So I would like to see this balance moving to the right, and I think this is possible,
01:37 because if I look at the polls all over Europe, more or less I can see always the same scenario, the centre-right movements are going forward."
01:54 Former Belgian Prime Minister and outgoing MEP Guy Verhofstadt believes results at the ballot box could determine more than just the parliament's political make-up.
02:02 "I think it will be an existential fight, an existential fight against those who want less Europe,
02:09 and then those political forces who understand that in the world of tomorrow, you need a far more integrated European Union
02:18 to defend the interests of the Europeans in this new brutal world of tomorrow."
02:25 EU elections will take place next month.
02:27 month.
02:28 [SWOOSH]