Conference on the future of Europe: citizens in the spotlight – The European Sting – Critical News & Insights on European Politics, Economy, Foreign Affairs, Business & Technology

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This article is brought to you in association with the European Parliament.


The first of the four panels of European citizens begins its work with a session in Strasbourg from Friday September 17 to Sunday September 19, 2021.

The panels are at the heart of the Conference on the Future of Europe and will bring together 800 citizens from all walks of life and from all corners of the EU. From September 2021 to January 2022, four panels, each comprising 200 citizens, reflecting the demographic and social diversity of the EU, will deliberate and make concrete recommendations on the future direction they want for Europe. At least one third of the participants in each panel will be under 25 years old.

In a multilingual environment, the participants of each panel will meet three times to discuss respectively the following topics.

  1. A stronger economy, social justice, employment / education, youth, culture, sport / digital transformation;
  2. Democracy / European values, rights, rule of law, security;
  3. Climate change, environment / health; and,
  4. EU in the world / migration.

Each panel will meet once to launch its work before the next plenary meeting of the Conference on 22-23 October.

The European Citizens’ Conference and Panels, in particular, are an unprecedented transnational and multilingual exercise in deliberative democracy, an exercise which offers European citizens a central role in shaping the future of the EU. Within the framework of the Conference, citizens can also put forward their ideas on a multilingual digital platform and in numerous events organized at national and European level.

European citizens’ panels will incorporate contributions from the conference’s multilingual digital platform, starting from the first interim report, published on September 15. Their deliberations will also be informed by recommendations from the national citizens’ panels organized within the framework of the conference in the Member States.

By the time of the final Panels session, these 800 citizens will formulate recommendations, which will be presented and discussed in the Plenary Conference. 20 citizens selected from each panel will deliberate jointly with representatives of EU institutions and advisory bodies, national parliaments, social partners, civil society and other stakeholders – all as full members of the plenary conference. After these recommendations have been presented and discussed with citizens, the Plenary will submit proposals on a consensual basis to the Executive Board, which will report in full collaboration and transparency with the Plenary. The three institutions – the European Parliament, the Council of the EU and the European Commission – are committed to rapidly examining how to effectively follow up on this report, each in their area of ​​competence and in accordance with the EU Treaties.


Next steps

During their first sessions, the Panels will discuss citizens’ different visions for the future and choose which sub-themes they wish to focus their deliberations on. They will also choose their representatives at the Plenary Conference.

The first session of each panel will be held in Strasbourg (i.e. Panel 1 on September 17-19, Panel 2 on September 24-26, Panel 3 on October 1-3 and Panel 4 on October 15-17) , the second in line, and the third in the European institutes of other European cities (Dublin, Florence, Warsaw and Maastricht), in full compliance with the applicable health and safety measures. The first two panels will present and debate their recommendations during the Conference Plenary in December 2021, while the third and fourth will do so in January 2022.


Background

The four panels of European citizens are one of the pillars of the Conference on the Future of Europe and are jointly organized by the European Parliament, the Council of the EU and the European Commission.

Participating citizens were randomly selected by an independent polling company, according to five criteria to reflect the diversity of the EU: geographic origin (nationality and urban / rural), gender, age, socio-economic background and level of education . Young people aged 16 to 25 will constitute one third of each panel and gender parity will be respected. To enhance transparency, plenary panel deliberations (i.e. discussions among the 200 citizens) will be streamed live on the Conference’s multilingual digital platform in 24 languages.

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