Yesterday, a Citizens’ Assembly on Germany’s role in the world, supported by the German Bundestag and co-organised by Democracy International, was kicked off. The Assembly will see 160 citizens who were drawn by lot and are selected to be as representative as possible of Germany’s population as a whole discuss and propose policy on topics of peace and security, economy and trade, democracy and the rule of law, sustainable development and the European Union.

The Citizens’ Assembly will take place over the next two months and will be held completely online due to the pandemic.

The Citizens’ Assembly takes place under the patronage of Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble and is organized by the association Mehr Demokratie, in cooperation with IFOK, IPG and nexus as well as the initiative “Es geht LOS.”

Over ten online sessions from 13 January until 20 February, the 160 citizens will discuss and develop policy recommendations in exchange with experts. These recommendations will be available in the form of a citizens’ report in March so that they can be discussed in the Bundestag before the end of this legislative period.

The 160 participants of the Citizens’ Assembly were drawn by lot from the population registers of randomly selected municipalities. They are intended to represent Germany on a smaller scale and so characteristics such as gender, education, which state they come from, how big the town they live in is and migration experiences of the participants were taken into account.

The randomly selected citizens will discuss “Germany’s role in the world,” a theme that was selected by the Bundestag’s Council of Elders. In addition to getting citizens’ input on the topic, the goal is also to test whether citizens’ assemblies are suitable for supporting parliamentary work in general.

Five specific thematic areas were identified by civil society, experts and with citizen and parliamentary input: sustainable development, economy and trade, peace and security, democracy and the rule of law and the European Union.

Find out more (in German) here.