Time is running out! The European elections will take place on 4 June but remember to register before Tuesday 19th May (midnight) to have your say on European issues.

The European elections represent a unique democratic opportunity for any EU national resident in the UK to influence European issues. Unfortunately, the EU still tends to appear as a “frozen monster”, whose decision-making processes suffer from a lack of clarity for many European citizens. Let me explain the reasons students ought to go to the poll on 4 June:

Firstly, I would like to focus on the ongoing work of European Students’ Union (ESU). Based in Brussels, ESU is the umbrella organisation of 49 national unions of students from 38 countries, and through these members, including NUS, represents over 11 million students. The aim of ESU is to represent and promote the educational, social, economic and cultural interests of students at a European level towards all relevant bodies and in particular the European Union, Bologna Follow-Up Group, Council of Europe and UNESCO.

I was pleased to contribute to that work as an ESU delegate to the ministerial summit of leuven, 28-29 April 2009. ESU did a good job regarding the communiqué that European ministers responsible for higher education adopted in the end. We already put pressure on their shoulders through Bologna with students’ eyes, released this year, which found that the Bologna Process is in grave danger of being revealed as a “superficial redesign of higher education structures in Europe rather than a transformation of the whole academic and learning paradigm,” and then called for “a radical change of approach” that would include “developing national actions plans for implementation, delivering on the commitments made in terms of the social dimension, setting and achieving a concrete mobility target and increasing access, equity and participation at all levels of learning.”

Ministers agreed, for instance, to a target of 20 per cent of students in Europe taking the opportunity to study elsewhere in Europe by 2020 – a key point in ESU’s manifesto for the forthcoming European Parliament elections.

The manifesto is an efficient document in understanding the influencing of the European parliament in relation to higher education, dispelling the myth that the European Parliament is powerless.

The next parliamentary term (2009- 2014) provides an opportunity for the Parliament to go further in exercising its legislative rights and its non-legislative powers. Provided with budgetary powers, the Parliament should push for increased spending on the EU’s Lifelong Learning Programme and the specific education programmes like Erasmus, and for additional money to deliver greater and more fully-supported mobility.

Further, as co-legislator, the Parliament can work in partnership with the Commission to create incentives to encourage students’ mobility, to support schemes that deliver real equity in terms of a higher education system for all, and to support the students’ rights charter

A large student turnout would send a strong message to the Parliament, urging it to focus on prioritising education as an economic engine to get us out of the recession. Only this way will the Parliament see itself as accountable to students across Europe.

Last but certainly not least, we must consider the danger the BNP represents in this electoral context. The ongoing MPs expenses scandal added to the economic downturn in which cunning spin and manipulation of cash-strapped and jobless voters could result in extremist protest votes. Politics in general is at a crisis point and I would hardly blame anyone for being so disillusioned as to think that not voting is the way forward.

However, regardless of the distain many of us feel towards party politics at the moment, it is never the less our responsibility to mobilise to on 4 June to prevent racist and fascist parties gaining representatives in Strasbourg and Brussels, denying them the platform to display their racist and xenophobic rhetoric within the European institution – an institution which has been and remains an institution of hope and tolerance throughout the world. When students vote, racists lose. Make sure you play your part on June 4th.

For further information on registering, simply go to aboutmyvote.co.uk where registration only takes a few minutes.