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Florence School of Transnational Governance - European University Institute

Democracy Forum sets the stage for European Citizens’ Panel in Florence

As the European University Institute prepares to welcome 200 EU citizens to discuss the future of Europe, the EUI-STG Democracy Forum opens its doors to the public.

08 December 2021 | Event - Research

EU-Democracy-Protest

This weekend, from 10 to 12 December, the European University Institute (EUI) is welcoming 200 citizens from all over Europe to take part in the final session of one of the four European Citizens' Panels. The panels are part of the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE), which was launched in spring 2021 by EU institutions with the aim to give citizens a more active role in shaping EU policies.

Professor Kalypso Nicolaidis, a driving force behind the School of Transnational Governance’s work on democracy said the Conference on the Future of Europe “has started a process of experimenting [ …] about what democracy is all about, experimenting with new modes and participatory and deliberative democracy through a digital platform and citizens’ assemblies.” (To watch the full interview, scroll to the bottom of the page).


The EUI-STG Democracy Forum zooms in on CoFoE

One day before the start of the Florentine Citizens' Panel, on Thursday 9 December, the EUI-STG Democracy Forum opens its doors to the public, in cooperation with Citizens Take Over Europe, NewEuropeans, E Rossi Foundation and EuropeDirect Florence, to take a closer look at this unique experiment in participatory democracy.

The Democracy Forum was founded in the fall of 2020 in the run-up to CoFoE and comprises 163 members from the world of academia, policy, think-thanks, the media and civil society to debate the conference in relation to state of the art academic knowledge on participatory democracy.

As one of the pillars the EUI’s Interdisciplinary Research Cluster on Democracy in the 21st century, the initiative is led by Professor Kalypso Nicolaidis, Chair in International Affairs at the STG, together with Niccolo Milanese, founding Director of European Alternatives and Alberto Alemanno, Professor of Law at HEC Paris. It also features a youth branch, the Young EUI Democracy Forum (YEDF), that works alongside the Forum, tackling the issues from an angle to ensure that young people's voices in Europe are heard.

The Forum aims to build a bridge between academia, European institutions, practitioners and civil society to support CoFoE in its goal to become a showcase and a test of what the EU could and should do beyond the conference. So far, the Forum has looked at the methodology of the conference and how selection and inclusion actually worked in practice. It has also analysed the political tensions and concerns involved. As "critical friends" of CoFoE, its main interest is to assess how this ambitious initiative could serve as a blueprint to reinvent European democracy, including the establishment of a permanent rotating Citizens Assembly for the EU.

If you are curious to know more about the Forum and its work on CoFoE, join the event on Thursday, 16.00 – 18.00 CET.

Learn more about the EUI-STG Democracy Forum and the Young EUI Democracy Forum.

Prof Kalypso Nicolaidis about CoFoE

Last update: 26 January 2022

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