Four weeks, there are still up to the European elections. Many parties speak of a fate of choice, but in the interest of the citizens is still to develop. Projects with concrete Benefits might help.

“Hello, I’m Arne Lietz, the SPD-candidate for the European elections.” Further, he does not come often. Some of them take at least the Flyer, many simply continue to go without a word. Around noon, Lietz has built up his blue umbrella with the stars of Europe in front of a supermarket in Landsberg near Halle (Saale). Lietz sits for the SPD in the European Parliament. Now he is continuing on European election tour: 100 events in Saxony – market places, and farmer’s homes and churches, farms, senior citizens.

“to Me, it is important to explain Europe – on-the-spot,” says the candidate. Is to explain a word he used often. To come in the first place talking to people, he is always with you: A wall, a map of Europe is mounted. Lietz want to know where the people were already in Europe, what has changed since the fall of the wall. So conversations about the freedom to travel. In the best case, this is the starting point for a longer discussion.

SPD man from Saxony-Anhalt is aware of the fact that the classic street campaign can be here in front of the supermarket is a laborious business. But some remain. “I usually met with open call partner,” said Lietz. The Brexit deal with the people, even as it is in Russia and Turkey. A point of arriving in East Germany, immediately, was a European minimum wage: “The social Europe, if you declared it on the minimum wage, is immediately understood.”

With the Mini-Van in Münster

Still four weeks until the voting. The posters are up, the choice of fighters are on the go. In the centre of Münster, a Mini-Van drives up. The tax man sits glued to, whose face is on the side of the car. Markus Pieper is since 2004 member of the European Parliament of the CDU. For a brief encounter with the choice of the people he has brought Manfred Weber of the CSU, the top candidate of Europe’s Christian Democrats.

a Short time before both of them had stood still on the stage of the Halle münsterland, where the CDU and the CSU together on the “hot Phase” of the campaign had agreed to. An elaborate staging with a Sofa that is reminiscent of Shows like “Wetten, dass..?”. At the end of a brass band marches, the European anthem echoes through the hall. Here, no one needs to be convinced. Union trailer.

After that, so a little campaign in the pedestrian zone. The People cluster around the candidate, Pieper, and Weber is great, but most here are clear as a supporter of the young Union. Also, the new JU-chief Tilman Kuban has arrived. Selfies. Group photos. Most of the potential voters a look short from afar, but then continue on your shopping spree. Some seek dialogue with Weber.

“It’s a hell of a lot”, says the CSU-man in his little speech. And the münsterland Pieper, following his previous appointments optimistic. For him, it is the fourth election campaign. In the past, people would have been simply for or against the EU. Now they are more concerned and interested, they would ask questions: “what’s next for the Brexit? We need to make us of Trump’s to Worry about? What is with Putin, the more?”

The Union parties have opened their campaign in Munster.

Specific Benefits

have One thing in common, the two fighters show. You want to show, where the European Union brings people tangible Benefits. SPD-man Lietz planted with pupils in Landsberg a tree. Your school in the locality Hohenthurm can be energetically renovated, because the EU zuzahlt a million euros. Alone, the city could Finance the project never.

beeper may refer in the münsterland, to many of these positive stories. So a company is researching micro-plastic can be removed from the water. On Friday, the CDU-choice fighters in the Mathias-Spital in Rheine was a guest. Here you are fighting with Dutch partners against multi-resistant germs in hospitals.

Jana Schröder, the responsible Doctor, commends the support of the EU: “in Particular, this European funding is important because bacteria know no borders. You can’t raise as a country projects.” From the point of view of Pieper shows that Europe is not a project for the Elite: “you can’t say that we are living in a Brussels bubble. We are already on site and want to give with these projects Europe a face.”

the interest of potential voters expansion seems to be capable of. But still, the parties have four weeks to change that.