Citizens will be able to have their say on the future of Europe from April 19

The Executive Council of the Conference on the Future of Europe has endorsed the launch of a multilingual digital platform on the internet that will allow EU citizens to participate in the community summit that will be inaugurated on May 9, coinciding with Europe Day.

The new platform will be available from Monday, April 19. Citizens will be able to access this platform on the Internet to contribute your opinions on whatever topic they consider important for the future of the EU. This will allow citizens, for the first time at the community level, to propose their ideas, comment on other people’s ideas, organize and participate in events. The platform will be the central nucleus of the Conference, a place where all contributions to the summit will be collected and shared, including decentralized events, European citizen panels and plenary sessions of the event.

A specialized ‘feedback’ mechanism will add and analyze the key points that have been discussed, so that they can be taken into account in the European citizen panels and the plenary sessions of the Conference. The platform will also offer information on the structure and work of the Conference, as well as resources for event organizers, including a list of the main events through which they will be able to promote their initiatives at local, regional, national and European levels. Citizens can easily search for the events they would like to participate in thanks to an event map.

After the preparatory meeting in which the co-chairs of the Executive Committee of the Conference participated, the representative of the European Parliament, Guy Verhofstadt (RE, BE) stressed the need for this debate to be as lively as possible, and in a timely manner. of the covid. This means experimenting with digital platforms as much as we can. With this platform, we offer the tools to give everyone a chance to be actively involved in this debate, and we want to ensure that those ideas feed into the Conference’s analysis and conclusions. It is your future, so it is your Conference.

For her part, the Secretary of State for EU Affairs of Portugal, Ana Paula Zacarias, representing the presidency of the Council of the EU, commented that “the digital platform will bring Europeans closer to the public space. It will allow them to express their concerns, share your dreams and expectations, as well as starting a conversation with their representatives. The Union needs the power of the backing of its citizens to make it stronger. This is a defining moment, and this will allow us to discuss different points of view frankly and without taboos. ‘

In the opinion of the Vice-President of the Commission for Democracy and Demography, Dubravka Šuica, the launch of the digital platform “will provide a unique space for our citizens to can debate and talk all over Europe. It will allow people to share their ideas, concerns, hopes and dreams, in all official EU languages. Interest is growing and I can’t wait to see the result.

The official ‘hashtag’ of the #ElFuturoEsTuyo Conference has also been launched. It is an invitation to EU citizens to contribute and define the future of the EU: “The future is in your hands.”

Additionally, the Executive Committee has made progress in preparing for the inaugural event of the Conference, provided that health conditions permit. The working methods of the Committee itself have also been adopted and a first debate has been held on the draft of the rules for the composition and work of the plenary sessions of the Conference.