Jean Monnet Project
EU2-You too! Involving civil society in the making of the future EU
The European Commission has set six priorities for the forthcoming EU: a) an European green deal; b) an Economy that works for people; c) a Europe fit for the digital age; d) the promotion of our European way of life; e) a stronger Europe in the world; and f) a new push for European democracy. All these issues should be raised within the coming process connected to the Conference on the Future of Europe (CFE) and, according to the Commission Communication concerning the CFE, have to be pursued with a particular attention to the national and regional levels, where it will be crucial to mobilize networks of stakeholders in order allow some of them to act as ambassadors for the Conference. This entails also to involve the schools and universities networks in a proactive and informed way.
The shape of the next EU should be coming from a bottom-up process involving directly citizens, through intermediate bodies like CSOs, firms and trade unions, other stakeholders, LAs. The involvement of such intermediate bodies in the Conference was already envisaged by the European Parliament and Commission. Nevertheless, a more direct consultation process of the civil society, in particular of the younger generations (we usually argue, critically, that they have no vote in current decisions) is key to make the UE more resilient to external shock and internal challenges.
For all these reasons, the project EU2-You too! Involving civil society in the making of the future EU, aims at 1) assisting the Representative of the European Commission in the process of involvement of citizens, 2) helping it to reach a higher, and different, number of people that are relevant in this bottom-up process of designing the future EU and 3) mobilizing the regional and national networks which can support the Commission initiative . These objectives will be realized through the following activities:
- Three ‘Citizens Assembly’ organized following the Link identifier #identifier__151427-1Bar-Europa Method, a best practice that obtained excellent results involving thousands of citizens, intermediate bodies representatives and several civil society members in debates on the EU, especially in the Lazio region. Each assembly will have as core topics: 1) A new Push for European Democracy; 2) An Economy that works for the people; 3) A stronger Europe in the world.
- Three Debates among academics, intermediate bodies and civil society activists focused on the Commission priorities and the CFE. They will be organized in three different Lazio location. The debates will regard: 1) The six priorities of the new European Commission; 2) the role played by CFE in the implementation of this priorities; 3) Which future for European civil society after CFE?
- Four workshops at Universities on 1) the functioning and the reasons of the CFE 2) the governance and the institutions of the EU. There will be two seminars in Sapienza and two in Roma Tre. After these seminars the involved students, under the universities’ supervision, will become “CFE ambassadors in the Lazio schools” allowing the project to reach at least 40 schools in the Lazio Region and guaranteeing a massive dissemination.
- Eight Awareness webinars for the Italian school professors, aimed at introducing professors to the functioning and the participation to the CFE. This will be done throughout the e-twinning platform and will involve 150 professors that, being already e-twinning ambassadors, then will disseminate the webinars contents to the other 79.000 Italian colleagues registered on the platform. These webinars will also allow to the European Commission to reach the majority of the Italian School system.
The project finished in March 2022. For any query concerning the project, please do not hesitate to contact the Academic Coordinator, Prof. Fabio Masini: fabio.masini@uniroma3.it