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The MOT is arguing for cross-border citizens' consultations
April 2018
Citizens' consultations are among President Emmanuel Macron's flagship proposals to give fresh impetus to Europe and "the link between its peoples and European construction". In France, they were launched in April and will continue until October 2018.
The Economic, Social and Environmental Committee will organise a national presentation of the consultations' findings.
All of the EU Member States – apart from the United Kingdom – are committed to organizing them. The results will be examined at the European Council in December 2018. They will inform debates in the run-up to the European elections in the spring of 2019. The aim is to create a "public European space by identifying the issues that citizens wish the EU to respond to".
In France, the first consultation took place on 17 April in Epinal (Grand Est Region).
The MOT is supporting the organisation of cross-border citizens' consultations
Michel Delebarre, the MOT's President, wrote a letter to President Emmanuel Macron, arguing for the organisation of these consultations at the cross-border level. The President's Private Office responded favourably, emphasising the President's support for this initiative. The MOT has also promoted the initiative among its members. It will assist in setting up and promoting them at national and European levels. The MOT wishes this process to be ongoing and to continue beyond the 2019 timeframe.
The organisation of citizens' consultations
These consultations will combine*:
- debates organised by governments, but above all by territorial authorities and elected representatives, as well as by civil society (associations, businesses, trade unions, chambers of commerce, cultural players, universities, etc.). All of the planned consultations will be the subject of a flexible and transparent labelling process; they should reflect the diversity of opinion;
- for the first time, a broad digital consultation in Europe, aimed, like the debates across the territories, at reaching a large number of Europeans, including those that do not usually give their opinion on Europe; it will be launched on 9 May;
- citizens' panels to think qualitatively about the major important issues.
For more information, go to the website Touteleurope.eu [FR]
Exchanges between MOT members take place within the network's Forum: more info [FR].
* Extract of the proceedings of the Council of Ministers of 14 March 2018.
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