European Citizens Agenda Conference

From 7-9 December 2007 the European Commission organised the ‘European Citizens Agenda Conference’ in Brussels. 250 citizens and representatives of NGO’s were collecting the findings of 6 large scale citizen participation projects co-financed by the European Commission (‘European Citizens Consultations’, Europa-House Budapest’, ‘Speak up Europe’, ' Tomorrow's Europe', Our Message to Europe' and ' Radio Web Europe'). Several Politeia partners have been involved in one of these projects, the European Citizens Consultations, as can be read in earlier Politeia Newsletters.

In different workshops the conference participants were debating the mayor concerns which have emerged from the citizen’s projects and selected the ones which should be submitted to the political decision-makers. During the concluding session a panel of high level representatives from various EU-bodies (among them Vice-president Mrs. Margot Wallström) responded to the participants’ conclusions and discussed with them the audience.

Following the conference an open letter with 27 recommendations was presented to the EU Heads of States and Government on the EU-top on 14 December. For more information see:

http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/wallstrom/communicating/conference/dialogue/index_en.htm

Tatjana Meijvogel-Volk, Dutch Centre for Political Participation (IPP)

This article was published in Politeia Newsletter 47 - December 2007