Virtual ‘Agora’ to bridge gap between citizens and EU

The European Parliament is setting up an online public space intended to better involve EU citizens in discussions on the future of the EU. The two-day exercise spearheads an initiative to open more communication channels between European institutions and citizens. 

The European Parliament will open a two-day ‘Citizens’ Agora‘ on 8 November, which uses the internet and social networking technologies to link citizens with MEPs. On the agenda website, citizens can take part in the drafting of working papers on a number of key questions. From 8-9 November, 500 civil society representatives will discuss these quesitons in the plenary room of the European Parliament in Brussels. 

While future agoras will deal with other issues, this first one will be on the future of Europe: the issue that revealed a high degree of alienation among many EU citizens when the French and the Dutch voted against the EU Constitutional Treaty in 2005. 

Coordinators at the European Parliament have posed a number of questions to which citizens are asked to respond. Overarching questions are: 

• The European Union is to tackle new topics and new solidarities. How should it address them? (This concerns, for example, Europe’s social dimension, climate protection and energy, immigration policy and the question of an integrated European diplomatic service).
• The European Union is to establish new rights. How are these to be understood? (The Parliament suggests discussing matters such as the implementation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and practical effects of the UK’s opt-out from it, and the introduction of a right enabling the general public to petition the Commission).

• The European Union is to acquire new tools. How should they be used? (Proposed topics include the way that the Commission president and commissioners are nominated, majority voting in the Council and

   the Council’s transparency).

• The European Union wishes to enhance its geopolitical role. How should it envisage this new relationship with the rest of the world?

• The European Union is to agree to an institutional compromise in order to break the deadlock in certain areas. How should the future stages of European integration be envisaged?

Records of the Agora’s work will be sent to EU and national institutions and to all organisations involved.

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