Conference on the Future of Europe: what’s next?

Nearly a year after the launch of the Conference on the Future of Europe and the related online platform, this ambitious experiment has officially reached its end, all in all in a successful and satisfactory way.

On Monday, May 9th 2022, Antonella Valmorbida, ALDA Secretary General, together with colleagues from the Strasbourg Office were pleased to be invited to the closing ceremony of the Conference on the Future of Europe.

Indeed ALDA, in the person of Ms Valmorbida and many other colleagues, actively joined this bottom-up approach, by being fully engaged in the Civil Society Convention on the Conference on the Future of Europe, both as Member of the Steering Committee, and as Chair of the Democracy Cluster.

Generally speaking, during the last 12 months, European randomly selected citizens were invited to give their opinion on the future of the European Union, to discuss the improvement and issues that the EU will have to tackle in the coming years.

Ms Valmorbida and many other colleagues, actively joined this bottom-up approach to ensure citizens’ participation, to reduce the gap between institutions and people for the Europe of the future

This debate and collaboration among citizens and politicians culminated in a report centered around 49 proposals that include concrete objectives and more than 320 recommendations for the EU institutions to follow up, based on nine topics: climate change and the environment; health; a stronger economy, social justice and jobs; EU in the world; values and rights, rule of law, security, digital transformation, European democracy, migration, education, culture, youth and sport.

In a closing ceremony, President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola, President Emmanuel Macron on behalf of the Council Presidency and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen received the above-mentioned report.

Yet, one question remains: how will institutions now follow up effectively on these proposals, each within their own spheres of competence and in accordance with the Treaties? First answers and feedbacks will be delivered during a dedicated event, which will take place to update citizens in autumn 2022.

ALDA together with other Civil Society Organisations, and European partners will keep its commitment to closely follow the process, willing to ensure citizens’ participation, while reducing the gap between institutions and people.