EPC's Petit: In EU Citizens' Panels, the institutions must not leave citizens behind

13 December 2022

The Conference on the Future of Europe citizens’ feedback event reinforced the need for EU institutions to find a better way to speak to each other and communicate with citizens. . the citizens did not feel they had received satisfying answers during the event.

In the last official event of the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE), citizens gathered in Brussels to receive feedback from the EU institutions on their proposals. Despite their enthusiasm about having a follow-up with decision-makers, citizens were left frustrated, with more questions than answers about where the results of the process currently stand or might be heading. What is clear from the event is that the institutions must realise that consultations do not end with citizens’ deliberations. Clear information about how (and indeed, if) their work will be reflected in policy and policymaking is expected. Conversely, deliberations risk being relegated to symbolic PR exercises, which defeat their primary purpose of bringing citizens closer to EU decision-making.

The CoFoE citizens’ feedback event

On 2 December, the European Parliament hosted over 500 citizens from 27 member states (who participated in the CoFoE European Citizens’ Panels or National Citizens Panels) for a one-day feedback event in which the three EU institutions would offer citizens a status update on the implementation of their 49 proposals. The event was meant to provide information on 1) existing initiatives that address the proposals, 2) initiatives already proposed by the institutions, 3) planned actions which would deliver on the ideas directly, and 4) new initiatives inspired by the proposals of the CoFoE.

What have the EU institutions done with the citizens’ proposals so far?

Since the closing event of the CoFoE on 9 May, each of the three EU institutions has made efforts (albeit to different degrees) to include the CoFoE follow-up in their individual policy agendas. For example, the European Commission came forward with a detailed assessment of what is needed (from their perspective) to implement each of the CoFoE proposals. The Commission also included a number of the citizens’ proposals in their 2023 Work Programme and has planned new European Citizens’ Panels starting in 2022. The European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for a ‘Convention for the revision of the Treaties’, and the Council undertook a preliminary technical assessment of the proposals. These efforts indicate that the results of the citizens’ deliberations have not simply been set aside by the institutions.

At the feedback event, the citizens appeared eager to learn how and when their proposals would be implemented. Their expectation was that representatives from the EU institutions would inform them in a clear and practical way about how their input had been taken forward in the seven months since the ‘end’ of the CoFoE. However, as the day advanced, citizens became increasingly vocal about their dissatisfaction with the event, frustration with the institutions, and confusion about what progress was being made.

What went wrong?

The presentations by the institutions on the post-CoFoE state of play were overall too vague and lacked wider contextualisation. They only referred to the number of proposals (35, ‘directly and indirectly’ related) that would be implemented through the Commission’s 2023 Work Programme and the percentage of those (around 95%) which would be prioritised as they do not require any treaty change. However, having spent considerable time and effort working on the outcome of the CoFoE, the citizens wanted to know which proposals have made it into the first batch of the Work Programme and which proposals fell into the 5% that would be put on the back burner on account of requiring treaty change. Despite directly asking questions about specific proposals to the institutional representatives, the citizens did not feel they had received satisfying answers during the event.

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