Former European Commission Vice-President for Values and Transparency Vera Jourova launched, on Monday 1 June, the Democracy27 initiative, a group bringing together former political leaders, civil society representatives and experts, whose ambition is to understand the reasons behind the erosion of trust in democratic institutions and to formulate proposals ahead of a series of elections scheduled in 2027 in several Member States.
“We live in a time of paradox”, Vera Jourova said when presenting the project at the Press Club conference centre in Brussels. As she pointed out, citizens continue to regard democracy as the best political system, while a significant proportion of them say they are dissatisfied with its functioning.
According to data from the US research centre Pew Research Center, cited by Democracy27, while 77% of Europeans regard democracy as the best political system, 64% say they are dissatisfied with the way it functions.
“We should know more about the reasons. That’s why we are here and we want to understand the reasons”, she said.
Chaired by former European Commission Vice-President Vera Jourova, the group includes former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, former French minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, former European Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly, German mayor Luca Piwodda, French activist Priscillia Ludosky, media specialist Madeleine de Cock Buning and Belgian writer David van Reybrouck.
A first phase will be devoted to consultations organised in several European countries. Under the slogan ‘Time to Listen, Time to Act’, the project provides for interviews with citizens, civil society representatives and political actors.
According to Emily O’Reilly, this approach should make it possible to move beyond analyses produced from within the institutions. “Unless you talk to people (...), it is difficult to understand them”, she said.
Several members of the group also referred to the consequences of digital transformations for public debate. Najat Vallaud-Belkacem believed that social networks had aggravated the polarisation of exchanges. “Public discourse is becoming more and more violent, brutal”, she said. And she considered that algorithms had “industrialised this brutalisation and turbocharged this disinformation”.
Moreover, issues relating to the use of artificial intelligence will also occupy a prominent place in the group’s work. Vera Jourova said she wanted to devote a significant part of the reflections to the impact of new technologies on democratic systems: “We must steer artificial intelligence in the right direction so that it strengthens democracy and does not destroy it”.
The final report is expected in the first quarter of 2027.
According to Leo Varadkar, the objective goes beyond publishing an additional document. “We want to come back with recommendations, a report, a road map that can tell us how we can strengthen, enhance and renew our democracy for the decades ahead”, the former Irish head of government explained.
Members of Democracy27 then hope to put these proposals to European and national political leaders in order to move public debate forward ahead of the 2027 elections. (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)