According to Dr. Gerhard Sabathil citizens should be more involved in the process of European integration. On the occasion of the presentation of the citizens’ report Dr. Sabathil pointed out that the European Commission knows well about the interests of different pressure groups. “Therefore I am very interested in the results of the citizens’ report and I am happy to transmit them to Brussels”, underlined Dr. Sabathil.

The presentation of the report in the European House in Berlin was the completion of the planning cells within the European Citizens’ Consultations (ECC). A team consisting of researchers and research assistants of the nexus Institute prepared, coordinated, and moderated the whole process under the lead of Dr. Hans-Liudger Dienel.

The main question of the citizens’ report is. “What Europe do we want?”. 45 citizens of the city of Berlin developed recommendations for the following topics: Energy and Environment, Family and Social Welfare, and Immigration and Europe’s Role in the World. Citizens from Budapest worked in parallel on the same topics. The results have been published in the citizens’ report “Key Points for an Open, Ecological and Civil Europe”.

The report is part of the ECC that organized citizens’ participation in all European member states. The planning cells were part of the project. The planning cell is a participatory method where randomly chosen citizens deliberate for four days on a given topic or problem.

The Belgian King Baudouin Foundation was the ECC’s project leader. The project was co-financed by Plan D of the European Commission.

You can find the citizens’ report here (5,28 MB).