Schulz is also campaigning online to reach as many voters as possible, and leads his rivals in the online race with over 200,000 combined followers and supporters across his Twitter and Facebook profiles. In the last week alone, Schulz has reached over 8 million people via these two channels.
Physical campaigning began with the launch of the progressive Olive Tree Coalition in Greece. He later went on to campaign with the French Socialists in Strasbourg, was a keynote speaker at SD Slovenia’s campaign launch event in Ljublana and also headed the first meeting of the SPÖ Austria European campaign in Vienna.
Schulz next travelled North, meeting the MEP candidates of the Danish Social Democrat party in Copenhagen and activists and candidates of SDP Finland in Helsinki. On 29 March, Schulz launched the SPD’s election campaign at an event in Hamburg, Germany.
Next on the agenda was the Spanish Socialist’s Campaign launch in Madrid, with PES Vice-President and PSOE head of list Elena Valenciano, with a crowd of 5,000 enthusiastic supporters. The tour then took him to Luxembourg where he laid out his progressive vision for Europe at a LSAP campaign event.
The campaign stepped up a gear in Paris where Schulz took to the streets with young French Socialists and then met with the French Women’s Rights Minister to discuss gender equality in the EU. He later joined his European allies in launching the French Parti Socialiste’s European election fight at a huge rally of 2,000 supporters at the symbolic Cirque d’Hiver.
In an intensive weekend on the EU’s Eastern borders, Schulz was welcomed by 4,000 Bulgarian Socialist Party supporters in Sofia, followed by a rally of 11,000 Romanian supporters in Bucharest the next day.
The campaign trail next led to Ireland where he first met with Irish Labour in Dublin and then took a train with young Labour and SDLP youth to Belfast where he spoke at a campaign rally along with SDLP party comrades.
On 1 May, International Labour Day, Schulz was marching for change on the streets of Warsaw along with SLD Poland members and supporters, before visiting the city of Lodz. After this, he went to tour the Portuguese cities of Lisbon, Setubal and Porto where he campaigned alongside Portugal’s socialist party,took part in street campaigning and visited a social project and several promising start-ups in an inspiring common working space.
In the final two weeks of the campaign, Schulz will visit Italy & Spain twice, France three times, Sweden and Malta. In a whirlwind tour in the final three days of the campaign Schulz will visit six additional countries.
You can find updated details of the campaign online at martin-schulz.eu and see many photos from the campaign events on his Flickr page.
Watch a video about the #knockthevote for @martinschulz campaign here.
