During the Swedish EU Presidency, a series of follow-up dialogues will take place at European and regional level in autumn 2009, targeting the new Commission, the new Members of the European Parliament and the Presidency, which has already shown great interest in cooperating with ECC. The European Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions and European political foundations will be involved in these activities.

The follow-up and outreach activities for ECC 2009 will begin with a European Dialogue Event, to be held in Brussels in September 2009, at which a small number of selected citizens will join a panel to discuss the policy implications of the recommendations with policy-makers and an audience of Brussels stakeholders and journalists. Citizens will confront policy-makers with their questions about what will happen to the results of the process and policy-makers will have the chance to react to the citizens? ideas. Citizens and policy-makers will be questioned and challenged by the audience in an interactive debate.

Five regional outreach debates, held across Europe between September 2009 and December 2009, will follow the European Dialogue Event. These debates will be attended by a wider group of stakeholders, citizens and policy-makers from, in each case, 5-6 Member States. This will help increase the spread and outreach of the ECC process in 2009. All five debates will begin with a common introductory, informative session on the main outcomes of the first phase of the project, but the remainder of the programme will be tailored to take into account sub-regional synergies and common problems or interests raised during the consultations and shared by the 5-6 countries represented at the debate. A total of some 150 participants will be invited to take part in each of the five debates.

The follow-up and outreach activities organised at European level will be supplemented by a variety of activities and programmes at national level organised and coordinated by the national partner organisations responsible for the national consultations. The scope and wealth of such activities was already shown during the European Citizens' Consultations 2007 Please see the national websites and the websites of national partners for details of additional activities and outreach events being undertaken in individual Member States.