Ursula von der Leyen reiterated that the European Commission, which she chairs, is “ready to follow up on the points that will be decided by the Conference” on the Future of Europe, during her State of the Union speech on Wednesday 15 September.
The first of the Conference’s four citizen panels, consisting of 200 citizens, will meet on Friday 17 and Saturday 18 September in Strasbourg (see EUROPE 12728/27). All of the meetings will take place in person at the European Parliament’s seat.
On Wednesday, the head of Parliament’s delegation to the Conference on the Future of Europe, Guy Verhofstadt (Renew Europe, Belgium), welcomed the fact that this “unprecedented Europe-wide” exercise was finally getting down to business. He explained how 800 citizens were selected by KANTAR to give a representative picture of the population in terms of gender, geographical origin and social background. Except that young people under 25 will be overrepresented by one third of the members on each panel.
“Young people should lead the debate. This is their future and it must be their Conference”, said Mrs von der Leyen.
Published on Wednesday, a first interim report on the ongoing exchanges on the Conference’s digital platform aims to provide material for the upcoming panel discussions. Two further reports are expected in mid-October and late 2021. According to Mr Verhofstadt, the most frequently discussed issues on the platform are, in order, the organisation of real European elections, the fight against climate change and a socially just ‘green’ transition, security and defence, the fundamental values of the EU, and migration.
See the interim report: https://bit.ly/3Ek3yWi
More information on the selection of participants for the citizen panels: https://bit.ly/3tJn0H4 (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)