The executive committee of the ‘Conference on the Future of Europe’ held its constitutive meeting on Wednesday 24 March (see EUROPE 12684/26).
The European Commission presented the multilingual online platform, which will allow every citizen to stay informed of the work, to propose their own ideas and to react to suggestions made by others. Eight clusters have been identified to group these ideas, including health and climate. The launch of the platform will take place on Monday 19 April.
In addition to the visual identity of the conference, the organisation of the conference plenary and citizens’ assemblies was also discussed. The first plenary assembly is scheduled to take place on 10 May, the day after the conference launch event, which will take place on Europe Day in Strasbourg. The Alsatian seat of the European Parliament is also being considered as a venue for the plenary sessions of the conference.
Four to five citizens’ assemblies are envisaged from next autumn, when health conditions allow. Brussels, Strasbourg, Florence and Natolin (Poland) are being considered as host cities.
On Wednesday 7 April, the next Executive Committee meeting will decide on the modalities of the plenary and citizens’ assemblies. On how to set up representative citizens’ panels, the Parliament is invited to make a specific proposal. Its Committee on Constitutional Affairs has already worked on the issue on the basis of proposals from the German Greens/EFA group Daniel Freund and Helmut Scholz (The Left) (see EUROPE 12645/23).
To assist the Executive Committee, a secretariat of 18 people has been set up. It is composed of six representatives of the institutional trio (European Parliament, European Commission, Council of the EU).
Each member or observer of the Conference Executive Committee will be expected to attend each meeting, as they cannot be replaced. The final composition of the committee is as follows: European Commission: Dubravka Šuica (Democracy and Demography), Věra Jourová (Values and Transparency), Maroš Šefčovič (Interinstitutional Relations, Foresight); European Parliament: Manfred Weber (EPP, Germany), Iratxe García Perez (S&D, Spain), Guy Verhofstadt (Renew Europe, Belgium), plus the four observers Gerolf Annemans (Identity and Democracy, Belgium), Daniel Freund (Greens/EFA, Germany), Zdzisław Krasnodębski (CRE, Poland) and Helmut Scholz (The Left, Germany); Council of the EU: Ana Paula Zacarias (Portugal), Gašper Dovžan (Slovenia), Clément Beaune (France), plus the four observers Milena Hrdinková (Czech Republic), Hans Dahlgren (Sweden), Juan González-Barba Pera (Spain) and Sophie Wilmès (Belgium).
Sitting on behalf of national parliaments (COSAC): Guido Wolf, Gunther Krichbaum, Luís Capoulas Santos, Marko Pogačnik and Bojan Kekec; - on behalf of the Committee of the Regions: Apostolos Tzitzikostas; - for the European Economic and Social Committee: Christa Schweng; - for the employers’ organisation BusinessEurope: Markus Beyrer; - on behalf of the European trade unions ETUC: Luca Visentini.
“The Conference is not a goal in itself. Our common goal must be to engage honestly with citizens, especially young people. We want less institutional complexity and less bureaucracy”, Tzitzikostas said in a statement. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)