CoR Bertelsmann Stiftung project 

European democracy, citizens’ participation and the role of regions and cities 

​The Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) was established for European citizens to debate on Europe’s challenges and priorities. The European Committee of the Regions (CoR) considered the CoFOE as an opportunity to establish new models of dialogue and deliberation with citizens that can strengthen democracies. The CoR-Bertelsmann Stiftung joint project was launched on 12 May 2021 to make cities' and regions' voices heard throughout innovative participatory processes and online tools.

Съдържание

European democracy, citizens' participation and the role of regions and cities

On 27 June 2022, following up on the final report on the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) , and the European Commission's Communication "Conference on the Future of Europe - Putting Visions into Concrete Action" and its recommendations on a permanent European Citizens' Assembly, the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) and the Bertelsmann Stiftung is organising a working conference .

The objective of this working conference is to deliver recommendations on how to take citizens' participation in EU policy-making and its link to representative democracy to the next level and make it a permanent reality. The results of the working conference will be summarised in a report and comprehensive proceedings will be made public.

For more details, please check the agenda here .

The Conference on the Future of Europe: Local citizens' dialogues and panels on the future of Europe

The Conference on the Future of Europe is the opportunity for citizens to interact with politicians across different levels of government, and express their aspirations. As the assembly of locally el ected politicians, the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) believes this is an opportunity to establish new models of dialogue and deliberation with citizens that can strengthen democracies. The intention is to open a "European public sphere", where pertinent issues of citizens in a form of dialogues could be brought forward.

The CoR has partnered with the Bertelsmann Stiftung to create this project designed to make cities' and regions' voices heard throughout the Conference on the Future of Europe. Innovative participatory processes and online tools will be used to host citizens' panels. These will provide input to high-level debates as well as recommendations for the final report of the Conference expected in spring 2022.

The project was launched on 12th May 2021 inviting cities and regions to hold a fixed number of local, cross-border or inter-regional citizens' dialogues or panels between September and December 2021, in or der to discuss topics that concern them. The key message deriving from the process will be that European democracy matters to Europe's regions and cities and vice versa, and that new models of deliberation with citizens can strengthen democracy across levels of government. 

Following online information sessions held on the 12th and 28th May and attended by more than 200 participants a call for interest was launched.  

After an evaluation procedure, 23 projects were regarded as successful and became part of the project. 

The supported projects could be summarized as follows:

  • The 23 partners and partnerships will include 37 regions and 13 cities from 16 EU member states and two candidate countries;
  • most partners are German cities or regions (14), followed by France (9) and Czech Republic, Poland and Spain (4 each);
  • 6 projects are from one region or city, while 17 involve two or more regions and cities;
  • approximately 50 citizens' panels are planned to be held between Se ptember and December 2021
  • 50% of the dialogues are planned to be held in a digital format (online only), the other half in hybrid format (physical and online) with the potential to involve 3 500 citizens.

To enable project partners to fine-tune their event ideas and provide support, planning workshops and training seminars were organised in June, July and September, enabling all partnerships to finalise their local, cross-border or transnational dialogues/citizen panels.

Between September 2021 and spring 2022 38 local, regional and transnational citizens' dialogues have been  conducted by the local and regional project partners. Citizens' proposals derieving from these dialogues were channeled to the Conference on the Future of Europe as well as into local, regional and cross-border policies.

On 15 February 2022 during the closing event of the project the publication of the joint report: Europe up close–Local, Regional and Transnational Citizens' Dialogues on the Future of the European Union was announced, for more details on the outcome of the project we invite you to consult the report available in English, German and French.


Документи

Reports

Project documents

Forms for evaluation

Planning Workshops

Seminars for process facilitators and moderators

Materials for practical implementation: random selection, recruitment and invitation to citizens´ dialogues

Materials for practical implementation: examples of deliberation, programs, schedules and templates

Materials on evaluation and digital surveys

Materials for practical implementation: information for citizens and technical instructions

Example - Presentations used by the Bertelsmann Foundation for onsite and online events

Прояви

Минали събития

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