This weekend, Strasbourg is once again hosting a European Citizens' Panel for the Conference on the Future of Europe. These citizens' panels come up with ideas and recommendations for the European Future Conference.
This weekend, several hundred EU citizens will debate climate change, environment, and health in the large meeting hall of the European Parliament.
The citizens' panels form a central part of the conference organized by the European Parliament, the Council of the EU, and the European Commission. The panels' deliberations are based on contributions from citizens across Europe, as well as support and presentations from leading academics.
The first meeting of the European Citizens' Panel took place two weeks ago. On Monday, 20 September, the Conference's Board of Governors welcomed the promising start of the historic first panel session. They also made the first assessment of the initial interim report on the first tens of thousands of submitted written responses and proposals.
As part of the consultation process, a multilingual digital platform is in use, on which EU citizens have already submitted around 20,000 responses and proposals. The topics “European democracy” and “Climate change” have by far the largest number of contributions. Pollution and transport are seen as a significant burden on the environment.
To improve agriculture, there are calls to ban the use of pesticides. Other environmental measures include promoting local farming, biodiversity, vegetarian or vegan diets, and fair prices for farmers.
Many of the proposals put forward by citizens align with recent plans of the European Commission. Global healthcare, food, and modernization of the economy are the main priorities for the European Commission for the coming year, as recently stated in the annual ‘State of the Union’ by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. In addition, she emphasized Europe’s ambitions on climate and the protection of the rule of law.