Press release of the Renaissance Delegation
Conference on the Future of Europe:
the European Parliament supports one of the key proposals of Renaissance*
Members of the European Parliament adopted, by a very large majority, a resolution setting out the objectives and organisation of one of the key proposals of the Renaissance programme to lay new foundations for the European project.
Initially proposed by the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron in his address to Europeans under the name “Conference for Europe”, this event, should bring together, from the 9th May onwards, citizens drawn by lot in agoras, intermediary bodies, NGOs, national and European elected representatives, and European institutions.
The aim of this Conference is to give new impetus to the European project and to define the changes needed to meet the challenges of the 21st century and the aspirations of European citizens and. The following topics would be discussed: values and fundamental freedoms, the institutional and democratic functioning of Europe, the climate crisis, social justice and equality, economic and social concerns, digital transformation and Europe’s role in the world.
The voted resolution includes the main proposals of the Renew Europe Group and its negotiators Pascal Durand and Guy Verhofstadt (BE, Open-VLD):
a random and representative selection of citizens drawn by lot to participate in the Conference (based on the models of the Citizens’ Climate Convention and the Irish Citizens’ Assembly);
the organisation of an exchange in plenary session between the selected citizens and other stakeholders;
the consideration of the work of the citizens’ agoras in the conclusions of the Conference.
“This Conference must be the landmark of Europe’s renewal.It is the positive and concrete response to the fears and mistrust that led to Brexit.It will give the European project back the strength it needs to enable European citizens to take ownership of a new shared destiny by going beyond institutional and national frameworks” – said Pascal Durand MEP, the delegation’s referent on the Conference and Renew Europe coordinator of the Constitutional Affairs Committee.
After the support of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the last November joint Franco-German proposal , a new decisive step has just been taken. It is now up to the European Commission and the European Council to take up the European Parliament’s proposal in the aim of an agreement between the three institutions in the coming months. The European Commission will adopt its position on the Conference on the Future of Europe on 22nd January.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2020-0010_EN.pdf
