The Conference on the Future of Europe is a Europe-wide process where citizens co-create recommendations on the future of Europe through a series of debates and discussions. This process was based on citizens’ panels involving 800 people from all over Europe, selected to ensure equal representation by country of citizenship, gender and age. Participants were divided into four different panels focusing on issues ranging from migration to climate change and the environment. Each panel consisted of three weekend events, during which citizens worked in groups to define a vision for Europe, propose concrete directions for improvement and make concrete recommendations to the EU institutions.
Members of our team were involved in this process as facilitators for Panel 1 and Panel 2, working with citizens on the themes of ‘A Stronger Economy, Social Justice and Jobs, Digital Transformation, Education, Culture, Youth and Sport’ and ‘European Democracy and Institutions, Values, Rights and the Rule of Law and Security’. Each of the panels consisted of 3 all-weekend long sessions two of which were held in-person in various locations and one of them was conducted online.
Durinf these days, our experts ensured that all of the members including representatives of the youth (under 18 years old) could share ideas about their vision for Europe and concrete ideas and recommendations regarding the subject each group was working on. The sessions included ideation, idea synthesis, suggestions development, gathering and providing feedback to other groups.
Each participant presented their ideas in their own language which ensured that all voices were heard regardless of existing language barriers. At the end of the process, the participants were invited to review all the recommendations and vote on them. Those that recevied that 2 ⁄ 3 of support were approved and moved to be further elaborated and submitted to the EU decision-making bodies.