The Labour leader’s proposal to allow 16-year-olds to vote in council elections is in line with what the Party of the European Socialists (PES) is proposing for its June 2009 European Parliament elections manifesto.

Claudette Abela Baldacchino, one of five PES manifesto coordinators within the Committee of the Regions (CoR) told timesofmalta.com that the PES group in the CoR had been discussing this proposal, which had come from the Young European Socialists (ECOSY), for the past months.

In his weekly opinion piece published in The Times yesterday, Dr Muscat said that lowering the voting age to 16 from 18 for local elections would be a way of involving young people in local government. He said this was one of the proposals on local government reform discussed at party level.

Ms Abela Baldacchino said the thinking in the PES is that in order to boost young people's interest and participation in the running of their localities, they should also be involved in the elections.

“This is a realistic solution because together we can make Europe work.”

“We have to go to grass-root level to discuss and debate these issues. This is what we are doing at party level, and this is very much in line with what the European Socialists are doing in their home towns,” Ms Abela Baldacchino said.

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