Brussels, 1 October 2008: A comprehensive online debate amongst Europe?s citizens will be the first phase of the European Citizens? Consultations 2009. Websites for all Member States will be launched at 18.00 o?clock on the 3^rd of December 2008 in the Resident?s Palace, Brussels, and will offer all members of the public a unique opportunity to become involved in the only truly pan-European citizens? consultation on the future of Europe, enabling them to make their voice heard.

Members of the public are encouraged to sign up to their national website and to become involved in their national online debate and their National Citizens? Consultation. On the website they can post their ideas on what the EU can do to shape our economic and social future in a globalised world. They can also rate the answers provided by other users, commenting on them and engaging in the debate. The top 10 answers provided by the general public will form the basis for discussion at the National Citizens? Consultations.

2009 represents a key year for Europe with elections to the European Parliament to be held in June 2009 and the new Commission to be selected shortly thereafter. The European Citizens? Consultations provide a timely input from citizens to their then newly elected representatives and to other policy makers as the EU moves into a post-Lisbon Agenda space.

Brussels, 8/9 December 2007: Participants and project partners of the European Citizens? Consultations (ECC) and the five other so-called ?Plan D projects? were invited by the European Commission to speak about their experiences with and the outcomes of the projects they had participated in. A total of 250 participants from all over Europe thus gathered in Brussels and joined various workshops during a two-day conference.

The conference was opened by Margot Wallstr?m, Vice-President of the Commission, and moderated by Pat Cox, former president of the European Parliament. Various citizens who had participated in the ECC events gave interviews, discussed the project results in workshops and shared their expectations regarding the next steps with policy-makers.  Via live webstream, the wider public was able to observe the different activities and learn about the participants? impressions.

As a result of the conference, an open letter will be disseminated to EU heads of state and government, representatives of national parliaments, the EU institutions and European political parties addressing the major issues discussed at the Plan D projects. The Commission will present its follow-up conclusions on the Plan D projects in spring 2008. More information on the conference can be found here.

Brussels, 28 November 2007: Gerrit Rauws, Director at the King Baudouin Foundation, the organisation that led the project consortium of the European Citizens? Consultations, was awarded the ?Giving a soul to Europe? prize. The prize was granted by CO.CE.Rome and the European Affairs Advisory Commission of Etterbeek, a commune of Brussels. Gerrit  Rauws received the award for the major part he played in pioneering European projects such as the European Citizens' Consultations and its predecessor project, Meeting of Minds.

Brussels, 7 November 2007: After having written a letter to the European Vice-President of the Commission, Margot Wallstr?m, the UK citizen Helen Duffet who participated in the national citizens consultations and the synthesis event was personally invited by Ms Wallstr?m to write in her blog. To see what Helen wrote about her participation in the events and how it has changed her life, click here.

Brussels, 3 October 2007: ?Communicating Europe in Partnership? is the both the title and the gist of the Commission?s latest proposal to enhance the EU?s communication policy presented by Margot Wallstr?m, Vice-President of the European Commission and responsible for Eu-communication on 3 October 2007. While the Commission wants to step up partnerships between EU institutions and with Member States and broadcasters, it also recognises the need to deepen its relationships with civil society and to build on its experience with various Plan D projects. The Plan D projects successfully involved thousands of citizens from all over the EU into the debate about the future of Europe. The European Citizens? Consultations were the largest of the six projects co-funded by the European Commission.

The Commission expects that a new set of these projects to be conducted in 2008 will help achieve the ?overall objective of supporting the ratification process for the Reform Treaty and increasing participation in the 2009 European Parliament elections? [COM(2007)568, p. 17]. Moreover, ?innovative methods? [p. 13] of the Plan D projects are set to become part of the Commission?s portfolio of qualitative research tools to investigate the public?s opinion and expectations on the EU.

The ECC consortium welcomes the Commission?s commitment to further improving its dialogue with citizens by drawing on the strengths of the Plan D projects and will be happy to assist in implementing proposed activities. As a next step, the Commission will launch a follow-up communication to Plan D and can be expected to further clarify its intended actions.

Brussels, 3 October 2007: A conference on ?Is the EU really listening to its citizens?? organised by ECC-partner organisation ECAS on 3 October 2007 attracted a broad audience comprising representatives of the EU institutions, researchers, civil society, media and other interested stakeholders. The conference was part of the European Citizens? Consultations outreach activities. Divided into three parts, the debate included an analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of different participatory democracy techniques, how to actually build on the results from citizens? deliberations and how to better coordinate different mechanisms and projects that are already in place. After lunch, Margot Wallstr?m joined the group to present the Commission?s new communication ?hot off the press?.  

In the first session, Helen Duffet described her full-fledged experience with citizens participation based on the European Citizens? Consultations (ECC) project. She was randomly selected to participate in the national event in the UK and volunteered to take part in the Synthesis Event in May this year. Being housewife and mother ?by profession?, Helen spoke about the need to build bridges, both mental and concrete ones, that must lead somewhere: True citizen participation ensures that communication is two-way and that people are ?involved directly in matters that directly affect them?. Click here to read her full speech.

Gerrit Rauws of the King Baudouin Foundation, the lead organisation of the ECC consortium, participated in the last group of speakers and presented ideas about how citizen consultation projects like ECC could be used as an integral part of EU decision-making processes. The challenge but also the fascination of such projects is their cross-border nature: differences in language and culture, how to bring them all together, how to identify issues that they at their heart, and how to give all of them a voice. However, it is of particular importance to show citizens that they are taken seriously and that their results count. Therefore, mechanisms need to be in place to ensure that their results feed into formal decision-making processes and are followed up.

A video summarising the event can be found here:

http://www.q-stream.tv/euractiv/20071008.wmv

Latvia, September 2007: The EU Information Agency in Latvia, an official state institution dealing with EU-information, is currently working on EU fact sheets that take into account their citizens' visions and recommendations developed during the Latvian Citizens' Consultation earlier this year. The fact sheets will include issues that were also of particular concern to Latvian citizens, such as civil society and the EU, enlargement, social systems and EU cultural policy. This is the first time that the citizens' hopes and concerns find direct entry into official information and education material. The Latvian citizens' perspectives on the future of Europe can be found here. The comprehensive European Citizens' Perspectives are available here in various languages.

Can citizen participation serve as an effective public affairs tool? This is the opinion of a jury consisting of top-level communication experts representing the German PR association (DPRG). On 14 September 2007, they selected the European Citizens? Consultations project as winner in the category ?Lobbying and Public Affairs?. This is the first time the prestigious award was given to a political dialogue project. The European Citizens? Consultations prove a successful example of how dialogue and participatory processes can be implemented in a way that suits the current political context and enables citizens? involvement across the boundaries of language, culture and geography.

On 3 October 2007, the second follow-up event at European level will be organised in Brussels (Residence Palace) in cooperation with ECAS, the European Citizen Action Service. Under the headline "Is the EU really listening to its citizens?", the event shows ways forward in citizen participation and what the EU can learn from the European Citizens? Consultation project. It thereby sheds light on the participatory democracy methods which are now being proposed to the EU Institutions as a new channel of communication. For more information on the event, go here (right column).

On Sunday, 22 July 2007, Danny Casteleyn, participant of the Belgian citizen consultation and the synthesis event, was invited to join the live debate on migration and to ask direct questions to Franco Frattini, EU Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security. While the two were connected via phone, viewers all over Europe and beyond were able to follow the discussion on the BBC World Service Radio and the BBC website.

Mr Casteleyn presented the main results of the European Citizens' Consultations (ECC) regarding migration and emphasised the high level of consensus among citizens from all 27 Member States who took part in the ECC project: citizens proved conscious of the need to control borders in order to prevent from illegal migration. Yet, they were strongly in favour of legal migration aware of the benefits of exchanging knowledge and experience.

Asked about how high the level of acceptance of legal migration was among Member States, Mr Frattini stressed the fact that a global approach was required in order to strengthen the management of borders. It was necessary to avoid, what he calls, ?migration shopping?, where migrants arriving in one Member State choose to travel on to another where the level of acceptance of illegal migration is higher. Therefore, he continued,  it was crucial to explain to Member States that legal migration had to be managed also at European level.

To watch the entire "Have your say" programme on migration, click here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/talking_point_programme/default.stm# and select the programme of 22 July 2007.