We are living a historic moment at the European level in terms of coordination and convergence of civil society around a shared agenda for the Future of Europe.
Over 80 thematic EU networks, platforms, federations and alliances have come together at the initiative of Civil Society Europe (CSE) and have set up a Civil Society Convention to participate in and scrutinize the works of the Interinstitutional Conference on the future of Europe (CoFoE).
The success of this mobilisation has largely contributed to secure, with the support of the European Parliament, 8 seats for Civil Society in the Plenary of the Conference on the Future of Europe. We will strive to make heard in this process a coordinated, diverse and inclusive voice of European civil society. Take a look at our contribution to the first CoFoE Plenary that took place in Strasbourg on 19th June: click here to see the interventions of Alexandrina Najmowicz as Co-Chair of the Convention, Patrizia Heidegger from Green 10 and Yannis Vardakastanis from the European Disability Forum as members of the Convention Steering Committee.
The work of the Convention is structured around 5 thematic clusters whose outputs will be presented and discussed in the plenary sessions of the Convention. By the end of the institutional process of CoFoE, the thematic clusters will produce reports that will be presented, together with a joint preamble, to decision makers, media and civil society all around Europe. A final event will take place in March next year in Paris, in the frame of the French EU Presidency. (Convention Action Plan infograph here).
We now want to go local with the work of the Convention and to involve grassroots constituencies in the reflection and drafting of our final proposals. From September to December 2021, we plan consultations and debates with constituencies, to feed into the Convention and CoFoE process. It’s time for you to get involved in the process, and bring your ideas and proposals that will nurture our final proposals and also help shape our key messages at the next Conference Plenary sessions and Citizens’ Panels.
We prepared a short survey to map out events/debates that can help us reach out to national and local level, so please respond and let us know what are your planned events/debates that can help us bring the Convention local, or what events you could organise with the support (in terms of expertise) of the Convention and the ECF to engage the local public in this conversation. Our national platforms of NGOs could play a lead role in this process, so we hope to count on many proposals from your side!