Pressed by several MEPs during an exchange in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO), on Tuesday 13 April, European Commission Vice-President for Democracy and Demography Dubravka Šuica explained that no new budget line will be created for the ‘Conference on the Future of Europe’ at European level, but that each EU institution and body will have to contribute from its own resources.
The question of how the Conference will be financed was raised by several MEPs, including Sandro Gozi (Renew Europe, France), who expressed concern that the budget allocation would not match its ambitions. “Each institution will contribute on its own resources according to existing budget”, replied the Vice-President. “So there will be no single budget line”.
Ms Šuica explained that the plenary sessions could be financed by the European Parliament and the EU Council, while the management of the costs of the digital citizens’ platform (see EUROPE 12694/9), including moderation, compilation of responses from European citizens and translations, will be financed by the European Commission. Member States, for their part, are encouraged to fund national events. She said that the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) will also finance their actions from their own resources.
The thorny issue of moderation
Another issue raised by many MEPs, such as Niklas Nienaß (Greens/EFA, Germany), was the question of moderation in the face of trolling, spamming and vigilance against any intrusion by non-Member States into the citizens’ consultation process. Here, Ms Šuica was reassuring, explaining that there will be a team of multilingual moderators who will “keep an eye on things” on a permanent basis. This moderation team will work closely with the joint secretariat of the executive committee of the ‘Conference on the Future of Europe’.
She reiterated that users can report inappropriate content. There will be a prevention system that will aim to prevent bots from adding content automatically. In addition, she recalled that every citizen who wants to contribute to the platform will have to open a dedicated account on the platform.
The Vice-President explained that, depending on the case, the moderator will act on his or her own initiative for openly hateful speech, spamming or publication of private data, or will turn to the joint secretariat for politically and morally sensitive speech to provide an ad hoc response. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)