The Conference on the Future of Europe was set in place to close the gap between citizens and the EU policy-making structures. The key ideas and outputs of the Conference found their way to the Commission work programme for 2023. In direct response to the Conference’s conclusion and the surrounding dynamics, the Commission has also launched, throughout 2023, citizens’ panels on specific legislative proposals. Monitoring closely these developments, ELIAMEP and the Hanns Seidel Foundation present the third collective output with a focus on the Conference and its legacy in the EU policy-making system.
In the previous two, emphasis was given on academics and think tankers who followed Conference-related developments either participating in it or closely monitoring and analysing its deliberative features. In this Working Paper, attention shifts to organised civil society and social partners with contributions from those two groups. In the Introduction, Spyros Blavoukos (Head of the Ariane Condellis European Programme of ELIAMEP) offers an overview of the developments more than one year after the end of the Conference. His contribution is followed by those by Patrizia Heidegger (European Environment Bureau), Ioannis Vardakastanis, (European Disability Forum of the European Confederation of People with Disabilities), Alexandrina Najmowicz (Civil Society Convention for the Future of Europe), Valeria Ronzitti (SGI Europe – Services of General Interest), and Esther Lynch (European Trade Union Confederation). Each contributor explains what the Conference meant for their respective organization as well as their input in the process.
You can read the study here.