Future of Europe Conference: first plenary on 19 June in Strasbourg. Citizens’ panels in Florence, Maastricht, Dublin and Natolin

The programme of the institutional initiatives that will mark the course of the Conference on the Future of Europe is now available. The opening plenary session in Strasbourg is scheduled on 19 June: it will define the working arrangements and speaking times of the assemblies, and will set up 9 working groups, which will be joined by the assembly members, based on the 9 thematic areas of the Conference. Each group will be composed of 40 people and will be chaired by a member of the Executive Board. These groups will meet during the two days of the plenary sessions, and remotely, if necessary. The plenary session will be attended by representatives of the Parliament, Council and European Commission as well as by representatives of all national parliaments and citizens, representatives of the Committee of the Regions and of the Economic and Social Committee, and by social partners and civil society. In the next few days, national parliaments will receive an invitation to appoint their delegates by 6 June. But it will only be from September-October that the four citizens’ panels will be able to meet, in person, in four different cities: Florence, Maastricht, Dublin and Natolin. The topics for the panels will be: “European democracy and the rule of law”; “Climate change, environment, health”; “Economy, jobs, youth, digital transformation, social justice, education”; “Migration and the EU in the world”. Each panel will decide which “experts” to invite and which “specific topic to address”. The panels will all meet in November and then in December, but remotely to cut costs. The second plenary session will take place in October, and others will be held in December and January to discuss the conclusions of the panels. Two further plenary sessions, in February-March 2022, will serve to present the proposals put forward by groups of citizens (through the digital platform and decentralised events). The final event for the European citizens’ panels will take place at the end of April 2022. The programme also includes an event for citizens in Lisbon on 20 June, and a European youth event in October.
Gianni Borsa