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The young German is fighting with his Volt party for more, not less, Europe. Portrait of a cross-border idea.
Tall, sneakers with open shoelaces on his feet, fashionable winter jacket, turtleneck sweater: Damian Boeselager could be one of the many young employees in parliamentary service.
But he is not, but a professional politician – for two and a half years a member of the European Parliament. His first political office ever. “I had no idea what to expect. I hardly knew any MEPs. I didn’t know how the parliamentary groups and the committees worked.
I had no idea what to expect.
That sounds like a random choice, but it’s wrong, because everything was well thought out: Boeselager got his first professional experience in Great Britain after his studies. Brexit came as a shock to the young migrant worker.
With a friend from France and a friend from Italy, the German founded the first transnational party with a pan-European party program. What is needed is not less, but more Europe. That’s why Volt was born.
A Europe Friends hipster party?
“We are now registered as a party in 16 countries and hope to get to 27 soon. There are now 75 local MPs and 20,000 or 25,000 members across Europe.” Volt is the hipster party of Europe friends, say critical voices. “I like to hear that we meet the spirit of the times and I hope that we don’t just reach the hipsters”.
I like to hear that we’re hitting the zeitgeist and I hope we’re not just reaching the hipsters.
Zeitgeist in the eyes of the Volt founder is the insight of many young people that cooperation across all borders would be better than national solo efforts. Volt politicizes from the center, is at the same time green on economic issues and liberal on the left, for example in asylum policy.
The Volt members would never think in such classic categories. Volt wants to do politics differently – networked, digital. On an internal Internet platform, all party members from all over the world exchange information, launch ideas and coordinate positions that everyone then supports.
Parliamentary democracy
For him, that is Volt’s main task, explains Boeselager. «We want to move towards parliamentary democracy. After all, weighing up national interests has only led to wars in the past and cannot solve the challenges of today, such as climate change, migration and digitization.”
The balancing of national interests has only led to wars in the past and cannot solve the challenges today.
Boeselager is convinced that more Europe and more community solutions to problems can only be achieved through pressure from below. That’s why Volt wants to run from all 27 countries for the next European elections. For the time being, however, only Boeselager made it into the EU Parliament, a lone wolf.
Just today he was able to record a political success in the EU Parliament. As a co-initiator of a successful request to the EU states to refrain from all energy imports from Russia.
Baron with a mission
Damian Hieronymus Johannes Freiherr von Boeselager, 34 years young. The father is a banker. The grandfather was an officer, but also a resistance fighter in National Socialism. The young politician stands with ironic distance to his noble family history. And yet something of this duty to get involved in the good course of history is noticeable in the conversation.
And his startup company Volt is actually still in start-up mode. With the only party in the EU Parliament that pursues a pan-European party program. Because all other parties are actually offshoots of national parties without a program at European level.