Citizens felt heard but recommendations not debated as expected – EURACTIV.com
Despite an interesting agenda at the plenary of the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) at the European Parliament in Strasbourg this weekend, citizens who took part felt that European lawmakers were not really interested in following the recommendations in a fair or concrete way.
The Strasbourg meeting was one of the most important milestones of CoFoE, an EU democratic experiment where citizens participate in shaping EU policies. But participants were disappointed that politicians failed to move the recommendations beyond the listening stage.
“I expected politicians to give suggestions on how to respond to our demands, instead of making general statements or trying to put topics on their agenda, which have nothing to do with with our recommendations,” said Petersen Troels De Leon, 44, from Denmark. told EURACTIV.
He added that politicians made an effort to listen to the recommendations. Yet hopes were low beyond that, as some MPs explicitly said they would only work on recommendations that mattered to them.
As already reported by EURACTIV in the early stages of the CoFoE, the lack of detailed follow-up procedures could create problems in the implementation of citizens’ recommendations.
Nicolas Morávek from the Czech Republic said EURACTIV that he evaluates the experience positively.
“The general environment was really nice; everyone was extremely friendly”. However, only “about 50% of politicians were really interested in what we were saying”.
The CoFoE sees citizens involved at three levels of participation: the first revolves around four citizen panels, where 800 randomly selected citizens develop recommendations through in-person and online meetings.
Panels 2 and 3 on democratic values, health and environmental issues finalized their 90 recommendations in Florence and Warsaw. Forty representatives of these two panels took part in the meeting in Strasbourg last weekend at the European Parliament.
Not taken seriously?
But some participants felt that MEPs did not take them seriously and were not even interested in what they had to say.
“I had the impression that some MEPs were totally uninterested in our ideas. In the working group, some of the statements made seemed to indicate that our role and our commitment were not taken seriously, while others tried to exploit some of our proposals to achieve their political interests,” said Chiara Alicandro from Italy to EURACTIV.
Likewise, Valentina Barzani from Italy told EURACTIV that “if I have to rate the event as a whole, I would say 7/10. As citizens, we are more mature in debates than in first encounters.
“Nevertheless, I expected a more concrete discussion on the recommendations, especially in the working groups. We received general reactions to our proposals. Fortunately, we have been assured on several occasions, in particular by members of the Commission, that our recommendations will be seriously analysed”.
The second level of participation concerns the national panels organized by the Member States, where citizens draw up recommendations like the European panels. Some representatives of the latter participated in Strasbourg.
“I had a great time being able to transfer the Belgian recommendations to the European Parliament and knowing the recommendations of the other national panels and European citizens’ panels. There seem to be a lot of similar ideas, which gives additional power to the recommendations made,” Dorien Nijs from Leuven told EURACTIV.
He is also concerned about the process of implementing the recommendations: “I hope that politicians will not only use the recommendations that correspond to their political agenda. It’s not cherry picking; all the recommendations deserve a similar approach”.
European panels 1 and 4, thea stronger economy, social justice, employment, education, culture, sport, digital transformation, and on the EU in the world and migration, respectively, will finalize their recommendations in Dublin and Maastricht in February.
These panels will discuss their proposals with the Conference plenary as Panels 2 and 3 have already done.
The plenary is made up of 198 representatives from the European Parliament, 54 from the Council, three from the European Commission, 108 from national parliaments and 108 citizens.
The third level of participation concerns the multilingual digital platform, where everyone can submit ideas and organize events related to the conference. The plenary will eventually evaluate the contributions of the platform in the same way.
There are no details on how the recommendations will be implemented from a procedural perspective.
As European Commission Vice-President Dubravka Šuica told EURACTIV, “the board will follow the recommendations without voting on them, but trying to reach an agreement on a consensual basis.” However, she could not give further details about these procedures.
The Conference Plenary, together with the Executive Board, will prepare a CoFoE report, which the Joint Presidency will ultimately assess.
[Edited by Alice Taylor]