The Civil Society Organizations, indicated below, have signed the following Declaration on the Rule of Law, the Multiannual Financial Framework, the European Conference on the Future of Europe and an Empower Roadmap.
About The Conference on the Future of Europe is one of the top priorities of the new Commission chaired by Ursula von der Leyen and is due to start in 2020 and run for maximum two years. We welcome the meeting of the three European leaders (David Sassoli, Urusula Von der Leyen and Charles Michel) that will take place at the end of January.We have renewed calls for a bottom-up, building-site and free-standing and spontaneously organized events. We suggest modelling these events on the world-famous Edinburgh Fringe Festival (www.worldfringe.com) to mobilize EU citizens ahead of the Future of Europe Conference. We discussed how a “European Fringe Festival” – as one model of a Citizens’ Agora - would allow citizens to occupy the “spaces in between” whatever consultative processes and citizens dialogues emerge from the inter-institutional negotiations.
We suggest that the role of participatory democracy will be played in the framework of deliberative thematic Conventions or Citizens Agora using innovative ways: crowdsources, the participatory budgeting, block-chains, contact groups, cultural and artistic festivals, transnational Platforms. We favor the use of online platforms which can reach out to up to 450 million citizens by internet. Such platforms should reach those individuals who are most marginalized and excluded from political influence and the answers of all participating population groups must be given weight according to the demographic structure. Through such online platforms, citizens should be able to prioritize policy challenges in local, regional and macro-regional demographically representative fora linked to Citizens Dialogues.
In thematic fora at transnational level and with necessary technical assistance the citizens will develop their own European policy proposals to be presented and seriously discussed and considered in later thematic conference plenaries that take place in different parts of the European Union with MEPs, the European Commission, Mayors and civil society organisations. Both the Committee of Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee will be active in this process. Streaming and participation of citizens should be provided online.
EMPOWER CITIZENS FOR THE FUTURE OF EUROPE (pdf)
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