News > The Czech Presidency needs to work towards making the recommendations of the Conference on the Future of Europe a reality

The Czech Presidency needs to work towards making the recommendations of the Conference on the Future of Europe a reality

Ahead of today’s meeting of European affairs ministers chaired by the Czech Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the European Movement International, supported by 25 European citizens members of the plenary of the Conference on the Future of Europe, sent an open letter to Mikuláš Bek, Czech Minister for European Affairs, and Her Excellency Edita Hrdá, Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to the EU, urging the Czech Presidency to be bold and ambitious and take forward all the recommendations emanating from the Conference.

The letter in full:

Dear Minister Bek,
Dear Ambassador Hrdá,

The Conference on the Future of Europe has shown how fruitful the collaboration between EU institutions, Member States, organised civil society and citizens can be. Working together during the past year allowed us to craft concrete proposals for a better Europe and to put forward groundbreaking ideas for democratic participation and decision-making. Citizens’ recommendations emanating from the Conference are constructive, ambitious and forward looking.

Ahead of this week’s meeting of European affairs ministers, we urge you to be bold and ambitious when considering the citizens’ recommendations.

These recommendations were endorsed in their entirety by the Plenary’s Conference and citizens requested that they are all taken forward. We welcome the Council’s commitment to carefully examine the proposals and we look forward to reading its assessment. Now the Czech Presidency has the opportunity to take up the torch and engage with the citizens’ ideas. As stated in your priorities, the Conference on the Future of Europe has created a unique space for citizens, and we hope you will push for this space to remain open for the continuation of the debate.

Citizens are eager to see the EU and its Member States work together to deliver solutions to the challenges they face, be it the climate crisis, the pandemic, social equality, energy independence or security and defense. They also wish to strengthen European democracy and make the EU more efficient so it can swiftly take decisions in today’s fast-changing world.

So our objective should be to have an open discussion on how to make the EU fit for the world we live in, able to defend our rights, our democracy, the rule of law, equality, solidarity, as well as our environment, social model and health, while ensuring that European involvement in the decisions that affect them goes beyond the ballot box. Whichever vehicle we put in place to help us reach our objective, we believe that it should be as inclusive and participatory as the CoFoE itself.

We hope that the today’s informal meeting of the General Affairs Council will be the beginning of this debate which should be as ambitious as possible and focus on substance, without shying away from confronting taboos.

Let’s seize this momentum to make the recommendations of the Conference on the Future of Europe a reality.

We look forward to hearing from you,

Yours sincerely,

Petros Fassoulas, Secretary General, European Movement International

Citizen ambassadors to the Conference on the Future of Europe:

Vasco Fernandes

Antonio Giardina

Nicolas Morávek

Augusts Redovics

Annemie De Clerck

Normunds Legzdiņš

Dragan Volarević

Raso Ivo

Andrea Cavestro

Paolo Barone