Do you want to discover how the Conference on the Future of Europe works?
Well, first, I invite you to watch the first video we published on this topic,
where we explained the whole process of the Conference.
You can find the link in the description below.
Today we will look at why deliberative democracy is so innovative,
and we will explore some recommendations of the fourth panel on migration and EU foreign policy,
which were approved in Maastricht in mid February.
First, a bit of context:
the Conference on the Future of Europe is the EU deliberative democracy experiment
where EU citizens are taking part in the EU policy making.
The 4th panel is part of 4 thematic panels,
where 800 citizens, elected randomly, are elaborating recommendations for EU lawmakers.
This is one out of the three levels of participation in this experiment.
Now, I want to tell you why this democracy mechanism is innovative
and why you didn’t see too much about it in the press.
Deliberative democracy is all about people debating,
very often politely, and trying to find an agreement on issues related to their daily life.
So they might not debate on topics like:
same sex marriage? In favour or against?
Brexit? Leave or Remain?
This debating style is very polarised.
And very often, the media look for confrontational ways of debating for their breaking news coverage,
as polarised discussion easily show some drama.
Nothing is black or white in citizens’ deliberations:
reality is more complicated than that, everything is far more grey.
Topics that are not polarise are often not newsworthy for the media.
And this is one reason, but not the only
why you see very little about the Conference on your Instagram, Tik Tok or Twitter.
So now let’s see in practice what I said:
The Maastricht panel approved 40 recommendations,
which topical themes are:
Reducing EU dependency on imports, making them more ethical.
Harmonising borders and migration management at EU level
to make more humane bureaucratic procedures.
Promoting integration courses, such as language and cultural ones
to make third country nationals more integrated in the EU.
Citizens even proposed to make some of the courses mandatory and free of charge.
Putting commercial relations with third countries in an ethical perspective,
and at the same time, promoting EU values
linked to human rights protection and ecological transition.
Improving the authority of the EU as international partner
while for examples, establishing sanctions
Voting with absolute majority in the Council,
except for decisions related to enlargement, and Treaty reforms.
17 out of 40 recommendations are on border management and migration.
This means that this panel is particularly concerned
about reforming the EU migration policy.
In these recommendations we can see their ambivalence:
on one hand, they feel the necessity to protect their borders,
but on the other hand, they believe that to make the process more efficient and humane,
the EU should be entitled to manage arrivals and integration processes.
Thus, we don’t see here things like:
migration? Yes or no?
Do we welcome or reject them?
We see a constructive approach where different aspects of the same society emerge.
The Conference will eventually be concluded on may 2022
when the outcomes of the whole experiments will be presented.
In the meantime let me ask you a questions:
do you like this way of making decisions?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of deliberative democracy?
But more importantly, did you ever expect that randomly elected citizens
could come up with quite significant and complex recommendations?
Let us know in the comments below what you think,
and let’s see together where this very interesting experiment is going!