For over half a year, Citizens Take Over Europe has repeatedly requested the list of participants in the Conference on the Future of Europe. A public list of the participants is essential for the general public as these members are the official “constituent elements” of the Conference on the Future of Europe. Finally, over six months after the Conference was launched on May 9th, 2021, we have received the list through an application for public access to documents, which you find here. It is completely incomprehensible to us why this list was not published earlier, and it is a stain on European transparency.
The list provides the names of the Conference Plenary Members in alphabetical order and their respective Working Group affiliation. The Conference Plenary is composed of 450 members in total: 108 of whom are from the EP and 108 from national parliaments, 54 government representatives (Council), 3 members of the European Commission, 108 citizens (80 as representatives from the randomly selected European Citizens’ Panels and 27 government appointed citizens from national panels and 1 from the European Youth Forum), 18 representatives from Committee of the Regions and 18 from the European Economic and Social Committee, 12 from local and regional representatives, 12 from social partner organisations, and 8 civil society organisations.
This list dos not include all the 800 randomly selected citizens of the European Citizens’ Panels but only those 80 randomly selected citizens who represent the European Citizens’ Panels in the Conference Plenary.
CTOE criticizes that this list of participants has not been made public and transparent, as we can co-create our joint future only if we are able to maintain direct contact and communication with members of the Conference in sufficient time.