In her annual state of the European Union speech this year, Commission president Von der Leyen said
‘At its heart, democracy is about giving people the power to choose the society they want to live in.’
At Citizens Take Over Europe we could not agree more. But in the rest of the speech no new initiative to reinforce popular participation is announced. In her previous speeches, this President was brave enough to launch initiatives like the Conference on the Future of Europe and the citizens panels which, however imperfectly, opened up spaces for greater popular participation, and a horizon for a transformational European democracy.
This year, a Congress of Europe is announced for 2027 to bring together ‘our best minds’, in homage to the original congress in the Hague in 1948.
When we speak of this Congress, we want to remember not only the towering statesmen and women who took part, but the people from many professions who participated, and above all the popular resistance movements of ordinary women and men with extraordinary courage who organised and fought against fascism, and whose transnational network, experience and debates formulated radical ideas for the transformation of the continent and the world towards social justice, dignity and liberty. Without this radical energy and grassroots activity, the Congress would have lacked the oxygen to take any world-changing decisions. Indeed the Congress of 1948 was an initiative of and organised by civil society. Not everyone organising it or taking part had the same vision of a radical Europe, there was diversity of interests and visions and power struggles, and the outcome followed no one preexisting vision but opened up a multiplicity of possible futures. That is what democracy should do.
History is not a series of repeats, but the core of democratic citizenship as a struggle for equal dignity has not gone away, and has in recent years often been most bravely carried outside of the European Union. Inside the EU, we must not forget that safeguarding our democracy from hostile actors and private interests is above all in reinforcing this civic capacity and ensure that every initiative of our European Union is based on and reinforces this principle.