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The European Parliament Office in Barcelona and the Learn to Check association are organizing a series of educational workshops that will take place from February 16 to May 6 throughout Catalonia. The initiative will allow 630 secondary and high school students from 22 schools to learn about the workings of European parliamentary democracy and the role of the European Parliament in the European Union’s decision-making process through a virtual role-playing game.

The initiative, entitled “Get to Know the European Parliament,” is aimed at students in the European Parliament Ambassador Schools program in Catalonia during the 2025/2026 academic year and consists of 25 workshops in which participants will take on the role of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). Through a virtual role-playing exercise developed in 2024 by the European Parliament’s Directorate-General for Communication, students will step into the shoes of European legislators and will have to negotiate, debate, and vote on a legislative proposal with an impact on citizens’ daily lives.

Specifically, participants will work on drafting new regulations on food labeling based on greenhouse gas emissions. Following the standard legislative procedure, they will have to agree on a common position within their fictional political group, present and debate amendments in a parliamentary committee, and finally, submit the proposal to a vote in plenary session.

In addition to bringing European institutions closer to young people, “Get to Know the European Parliament” aims to foster critical thinking, promote reflection on disinformation, and reinforce democratic values. Through this practical and participatory experience, students will gain firsthand knowledge of the challenges and responsibilities of Members of the European Parliament and better understand how European politics works.

The European Parliament Ambassador Schools Programme is an initiative of the European Parliament’s Directorate-General for Communication, created in the 2015/2016 academic year with the aim of bringing the institution’s workings closer to classrooms and the wider community. Participating schools develop educational activities related to the European Union throughout the year, work with multilingual educational materials, and commemorate May 9, Europe Day.

In the 2025/2026 academic year, 25 schools in Catalonia are participating—13 in the province of Barcelona, ​​4 in Tarragona, 5 in Girona, and 3 in Lleida. Since the programme’s inception, a total of 42 Catalan schools have participated.

Following the success of the first edition, the European Parliament Office in Barcelona and Learn to Check are relaunching the “Get to Know the European Parliament” project. The first edition, held during the 2024/2025 academic year, involved around 500 young Catalans who also stepped “into the shoes of MEPs” through virtual role-playing. During the first edition, data was collected for research that was analyzed in the scientific article “Gamified Media Literacy and Democratic Values ​​in Adolescence: A Study of the European Parliament Virtual Role-Playing Game,” published in the journal Desde el Sur. The article’s findings show how the activity promoted a more accurate understanding of the phenomenon of disinformation and fostered critical thinking skills, such as diversifying sources and adopting a more balanced information diet. It also led to a significant increase in knowledge about the workings of the European Parliament. A majority support for deliberative democracy was observed both before and after the activity. However, a slight increase in the acceptance of authoritarianism as a valid option in certain circumstances was detected.