Conference on the Future of Europe

How it all began

The Conference on the Future of Europe was a citizen-led series of debates and discussions that ran from April 2021 to May 2022 and enabled people from across Europe to share their ideas and help shape our common future.

The Conference was the first of its kind: as a major pan-European democratic exercise, with citizen-led debates enabling people from across Europe to share their ideas and help shape our common future. This was done via an innovative Multilingual Digital Platform where any European could share ideas, and both national panels and European Citizens' Panels.

With more than 5 million unique visitors to the platform and more than 700,000 event participants, the Conference succeeded in creating a public forum for an open, inclusive, and transparent debate with citizens around a number of key priorities and challenges.

Read more on the Conference on the Future of Europe website (archived)

Following an exceptional, year-long journey of discussions, deliberations and collaboration by citizens from across Europe, on the kind of Europe they would like to live in, the Conference on the Future of Europe officially came to a close on 9 May 2022 – Europe Day – in Strasbourg. On this day, the Co-Chairs of the Conference Executive Board delivered a final report containing the 49 proposals to the Presidents of the European Parliament, the Council and Commission.  

These proposals covered 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. They included general objectives and more than 300 concrete measures, and the three institutions are now examining how to follow up effectively on them, each within their own spheres of competences and in accordance with the Treaties.

The Commission has published on 17 June a Communication offering a detailed assessment of what is needed to follow up on the Conference’s proposals. It gives an overview of the next steps, setting out how best to learn from the Conference and embed participatory democracy into the European Union’s policy and law making. For instance, building on the success of the European Citizens’ Panels, the Commission will enable these panels to deliberate and make recommendations ahead of certain key proposals, as part of its wider policymaking and in line with Better Regulation principles. The Commission is organising the first new generation of citizens’ panel on how to step up action to reduce food waste in the EU.

European citizens' panels

President von der Leyen announced the first set of new proposals in the State of the Union address in September 2022, as well as in the accompanying Letter of Intent. These proposals have also been included in the 2023 Commission work programme. To keep the citizens who have participated in the Conference informed, and to keep up the momentum, a feedback event was organised in December 2022. This event was an opportunity to explain to citizens how the three EU institutions are following up on the proposals from the Conference.

It was part of President von der Leyen’s pledge to give Europeans a greater say on what the EU does and how it works for them. All Europeans - whoever they are and wherever they are - could take part.

The Conference aimed to reflect our diversity, and to bring Europe beyond its capital cities, reaching every corner of the EU, strengthening the link between Europeans and the institutions that serve them. It did so through a multitude of conference events and debates organised across the EU, as well as through an interactive multilingual digital platform. And it did so successfully: by May 2022 the platform had received close to 5 million unique visitors and over 50,000 active participants had taken part in 18,000 debates and over 6,500 registered events.  

Young people in particular were encouraged to take part and share their ideas. European, national, regional and local authorities, as well as civil society and other organisations could also organise events to involve as many people as possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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