Freshers' week in Strasbourg for new EU lawmakers

Our guests this week are Isabella Lövin, Swedish MEP from the Greens, Fidias Panayiotou, Cypriot independent MEP and Sigrid Friis, a lawmaker from Renew Europe. 

Broadcasting from the European Parliament in Strasbourg, we hear what MEPs hope to achieve in the next five years.

“My followers, first of all, want to understand the European Union”, YouTuber turned politician Fidias told the panel.

The 24-year-old confessed to the panel he doesn’t know anything about politics, but wants to focus on a topic close to his heart — education. He spent the week creating video content for his millions of followers and even hitchhiked from Brussels to France.

Fighting climate change is the major goal of 29-year-old Sigrid Friis, from Denmark. 

“I have to stop the import of Russian gas and oil into the European energy system. Fighting climate change can easily go hand-in-hand with ensuring competitiveness”, she said.  

For Isabella Lövin, Sweden’s former climate minister who’s now an MEP for the second time, backtracking on green policies would be a disaster. The Greens are very popular in her country and industry is on board with climate targets, she said.

“This is really a crucial time to move forward”, she said. “We don’t know what will happen in the elections in the US now and later in this year. So the EU will be very, very important”. 

Watch “Brussels, my love?” in the player above.