It's your choice! Ska Keller, youngest German member of the EU Parliament

April 15, 2015

The European elections are on May 25th. Participation means having a say – how we live, work and study in the future. UNIGLOBALE was traveling in Brussels and met two MPs.

Backpack, Chucks, clothes in between, scattered wildly on the floor and sofa - you can see it in Ska Keller's small office in Brussels: someone who travels a lot works here. Spain, France, Germany, Czech Republic and Slovenia. Coming soon to Finland and Sweden. The European election campaign is in full swing and Ska Keller is hopping member states.

“I live in a suitcase,” says the young politician, who is running as the European Greens’ top candidate in May. »There are no two days that are completely alike. It's always hectic.« Without her Outlook calendar, which is almost overflowing with orange, i.e. important, appointments, nothing would work. Also in Strasbourg, or as now in Brussels for the two-day plenary session, when group, committee, plenary, preparatory and working group meetings chase each other. In between there are various interviews and weekend events on topics such as 'Asylum in Europe' or 'The free trade agreement with the USA'. This easily adds up to 87 working hours per week. For jogging, their compensation, there is usually only the calendar color blue for 'maybe'.

Ska Keller is happy to accept that her apartments in Berlin and Brussels are more of a transitional station due to this workload and that it is hardly worth buying houseplants. When asked why, there is a self-confident statement: “I want to improve the world.”

This was the case before, as a teenager, when she still lived in Guben in Brandenburg and was committed to animal protection and against neo-Nazis. Being politically active - for her it was always completely logical and normal, not a life plan that she consciously decided on at a certain point in time. Things continued organically when she discovered the GREENS for herself: member of the federal board of the GRÜNE YOUTH, spokeswoman for the Federation of Young European Greens (FYEG) and state chairwoman of Alliance 90/The Greens in Brandenburg. At the same time, she studied Islamic studies, Turkish studies and Jewish studies in Berlin and Istanbul.

In 2009, with her degree in hand, Ska Keller's European political career began: at the age of 27, she entered the European Parliament for the first time with the motto 'Not just grandpa for Europe'. Today, at 32, she is still the youngest German MEP.

“Growing together and overcoming borders – that is still what Europe is all about for me,” says Ska Keller, who is next to her
German and also fluent in English, French and Spanish. Growing up on the German-Polish border, this experience was certainly formative for her. The queuing, the presentation of passports, the queues of trucks that stretched for kilometers into the country. Today that's no longer a thing: no detours via border posts, just five meters straight ahead.

So it is hardly surprising that, as a member of the Trade and Home Affairs Committee, she not only deals with trade and development policy, but also devotes her time and energy primarily to a more humane asylum and refugee policy. She travels a lot to crisis areas, e.g. B. to Ceuta, a Spanish city on the North African coast. A Europe that isolates itself and sees itself as a fortress – for Ska Keller that is not a solution. At least she was able to ensure that operations by the border protection agency Frontex would in future be accompanied by a human rights officer. You can definitely achieve concrete things in the EU Parliament, says Ska Keller.

She sometimes gets annoyed with the media. When they write in general terms “Europe has decided that…”. Above all, before the election, you have to know who you are actually voting for, what positions they represent, what they think is right and what is wrong. Their way of doing politics and campaigning is therefore modern and transparent. Facebook and Twitter are included, as is her blog, where she reports on her work and ideas via text and video podcasts. The way she was elected as the top candidate also testifies to a new era: via the 'Green Primary', the first Europe-wide online vote.

Ska Keller finds the fact that only 30 percent are women and only a handful of young representatives in the EU Parliament 'bitter' and 'shocking'. Between her and the youngest member of the group - the 26-year-old Swede Amelia Andersdotter, chairwoman of the European Pirate Party - there are only two other representatives of a new generation. But she sees the change coming. “I would like parties to field more young people in the future and let them get ahead.”

Says it and looks at the clock. She has to go again. The evening is reserved for voting. For example, about the EU's Iran strategy and a Europe-wide reduction in the noise level of motor vehicles. Then another radio interview, tomorrow on to France, the day after tomorrow on to Ceuta. A life for Europe.

The European elections are on May 25th. Participation means having a say – how we live, work and study in the future. UNIGLOBALE was traveling in Brussels and met two MPs. Backpack, chucks, clothes in between, scattered wildly on the floor and sofa - you can see it in Ska Keller's small office in Brussels: someone who works here is on the go a lot

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