Europe 2020 Virtual Seminars: "EU Democratization - the conditions of success of a public debate on the future of Europe"

The need to organize a large democratic debate in the European Union around the general question of the future of the EU, has become a political priority after the European Summit in Nice. This political priority results as much from the will of European leaders to intiate this debate as from the current political situation in the EU where a vast questioning on the ends and nature of the Union suddenly intensified among the European public opinion. The recent crises which affected and are still affecting the European system acted as a catalyst on a public opinion barely informed on EU functioning mechanisms. The approaching perspective of the Euro introduction in the hands of European citizens reinforces both the urgency of such a debate and its crucial importance with regards to the coming decade.

It seems probable indeed that the Euro will accelerate the process of citizen involvement in EU gouvernance and that future great orientations (including the enlargement and its calendar) will no longer be possible to implement without a real adhesion of majorities of the public opinions to the strategies and general directions of the EU.

In this new context as new for the citizens as for the institutions, the launching of the democratic debate on the future of the EU blocks on a range of constraints sometimes mutually contradictory :

. launching the debate quickly while making sure it is a sincere and constructive debate (two elements generally requiring time)

. anticipating the rapid evolutions that political, social, cultural and economic consequences of the introduction of the Euro may generate, while leaving time for the debate to take place peacefully

. making the needed European debate converge with the national debates held on the same theme, as well as with the various national traditions regarding democratic debate

. inventing the forms, methods and vectors of a debate on Europe which is unpreceded and therefore lacks any referential or validated instruments

. integrating the new expectations of citizens regarding interactivity to the growing impact of new technologies in this field.

. making compatible the traditional requirements of the European agenda, based on the institutional pace (Summits, IGC...), with the new rhythm impelled by the crises, the introduction of the Euro and the reactions of the public opinion.

. overcoming the significant handicap that constitutes the very weak " euro-citizen" maturity of public opinions deeply ignorant of the stakes, processes and methods of the Community project

. finally, organizing, without sterilizing such a wide-ranging debate, while avoiding confusion during its elapsing, or frustration as to its ends (if those were not clearly established in common right from the start).

Most European decision makers are now conscious of the strategic character of this debate for the future of the EU, while they admit that they are relatively deprived from the means to act efficiently in the months to come.

This seminar aims at bringing clear and directly operational answers to the 4 following questions:

What kind of debate does the public opinions expect (scope of the questioning, degree of interactivity) ? What kind of debate do the institutions expect? What is the final goal of all this?
Which agenda will be the most efficient to bridge sustainably citizens and European construction (process steps, parallel between public opinion evolutions and institutional agenda) ?
How to set up the debate? How to articulate the European, national and regional levels? With which relays? (methodology elements, including identification and use of the relays, target and relay groups,…)
How to organize the best articulation of the various instruments of the debate (using new technologies, in particular)?