A transnational campaign - Pt 2

It’s May 5th and the official campaign has started - if you want to know more about my campaign and programme, check out my website, a bit more about myself and my resume. In this newsletter, I’ll write about my transnational listening tour, the political situation in the countries and cities I’m visiting, how Volt is doing and how traveling across the continent.

Stories from the transnational trail: Kickoff

Nicosia, Cyprus 🇨🇾

A 2am bus departure to Venice at 5am and a flight later, I touched down in Cyprus arriving in the middle of the parliamentary election campaign. Volt Cyprus has one seat in Parliament (Alexandra Attalides, who joined us from the Greens) and is now campaigning to officially enter Parliament as Volt. They have a full list of 52 candidates and since electors vote for a party and preferred candidate, all 52 are running their individual campaigns (currently at 5% and over the 3.6% threshold!!)

First stop on my visit: cross the border into the occupied zone. Passport control and Checkpoint Charlie vibe as Nicosia was torn into two parts with the former high street decaying as a military buffer zone. The people have long united in spirit and it was great to meet Volters on both sides of the border enjoying coffee in the sun while talking elections with neighbors and citizens - a different type of campaigning to for example France. We fit in a small tour of abandoned villas and the island's history before hiding from the rain.

Rodoula Demetriades, one of Volt Europa’s current Board members pitched to the daily newspaper to write about Volt Europa and my campaign and so we spent a bit of time answering questions for a great article. A good example of how Volt Europa being political can give visibility to national chapters and show our European angle. Especially in a country far away from the rest of Europe, it is super-important to create this connection and to advocate for Cyprus being better connected - what will be the equivalent to the EU high speed train network for example).

I left with a lot of ideas for Romania and want to thank again the whole team of Volt Cyprus that took care of me. 💜

Bucharest, Romania 🇷🇴

I only had a late afternoon in Bucharest before a nightbus to Sofia and after getting grilled at passport control because my 2017 ID photo had much shorter and less grayer hair than my 2026 self, I could finally enter Romania to meetup with the Volt Bucharest team.

The evening was already planned, so I tagged along to a book presentation by Sandu Cuturela on security in a changing geopolitical context. I could follow thanks to Ana Măiță instant-translating for me and I also managed to bring contacts from my network and connect them with Volt Romania to grow their list of advisors on different policy topics.

We finished with Romanian cuisine and discussed the role of Volt Romania and other central-european countries within Volt as well as the different political climates on both sides of the former iron curtain. In some countries Volt is liberal, in some green, in some social-democrat and in some countries we’re also very much centrist. Political climates are different from member state to member state and getting everyone on board and work in a joint direction is a key task for our European leadership.

Needless to say, the team took great care of me, even seeing me off to the bus station and night bus to Sofia.

Sofia, Bulgaria 🇧🇬

This was a rough ride, no chance to even think about sleep and when I rolled into Sofia at 5am in the morning, I took one of my sleep jokers and booked a hotel from 6am to late checkout to sleep a few hours. Simeon, the co-president of Volt Bulgaria was ready to pick me up at 10am, but a few hours under a blanket still felt great.

We had typical Bulgarian breakfast (princesa, don’t think princess) and discussed Volt in Bulgaria. Same as in Romania, the political climate is much more centrist than in other member states, so Volt’s default positions from abroad don’t really convince much of an electorate here. We were also two weeks before the elections and Volt Bulgaria was running in a coalition with an NGO for road safety - I could relate immediately after my bus trip. They finished with 2.9% short of the 4% threshold, but nevertheless a respectable result.

If you didn’t know, Bulgaria finally joined Schengen last year after Austria gave up blocking it, and the country also introduced the Euro in January. The European Union is not universally loved, but the country is making strides to catch up with other EU member states. I learned more about the issues between Volt Bulgaria and Volt Europa and was happy to have had a chance to talk directly with members of one of our local chapters that never found its way into our European network. Time to try and change this.

And since I already had one bumpy ride into Bulgaria, I took another bumpy ride out of the country and to Thessaloniki in Greece.

Thessaloniki and Athens, Greece 🇬🇷

This time I arrived before midnight and Christos from the local team even picked me up and dropped me off in his office to sleep on the couch. Finally some real sleep…

We had the morning to discuss local currencies and universal basic income, enjoying coffee on the beachfront as I learned about Thessaloniki’s multicultural history as a melting pot and cultural hub, which after a period of nationalism was slowly coming back. We met with the local team for lunch to discuss politics and the difficulties running in Greece - for example, while France allocates media slots to all parties running, in Greece you do need to bribe your way into media visibility.

We enjoyed discussing different perspectives on Europe before I left for the train station and Athens. The countryside was much greener than I expected and since mobile internet was non-existing, I couldn’t really work, so I enjoyed the view. I arrived late in Athens and was picked up by Odysseas with whom I discussed way too long before falling asleep. The next morning we met up with the Athens team in a local bookstore. Electra, also running for the Board, was in Athens, too, so of course we were discussing the upcoming elections and politics in Greece.

I couldn’t stay too long, since my flight for Tirana was in the early afternoon, so eventually I had to leave, more or less sprinting to the airport sprinter, but arriving in time to continue to Albania.

Tirana, Albania 🇦🇱

It was my second visit to Tirana after our GA a few years ago. In Albania, Volt is cooperating with Nisma Thurje who should eventually merge into Volt Albania. I was met by their representatives and we spent an evening discussing politics in Albania, the importance of having party members with government experience and the activities of Nisma Thurje in the past, for example to make beaches accessible to the public again as the country is moving towards the European Union - another project that seems stuck on paper with the current government.

We discussed what a big difference gradual EU accession would make in the population - for example by already giving access to Albanian citizens to pass through the EU queue at immigration. Small things with big impact in theory.

We finished with local cuisine of course and after trying everything, I contemplated my next light dinner over a sleepless night at an airport hotel before heading back to Ljubljana in the early morning to wrap up my tour of Central and Eastern Europe full of ideas and impressions and humbled by the hospitality wherever I went.

Purple regards 💜

Sven