The Conference on the Future of Europe Plenary hold thematic discussions based on ideas from European Citizens’ Panels. Guy VERHOFSTADT, Co-Chair of the Executive Board, Dubravka ŠUICA, Co-Chair of the Executive Board and Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Democracy and Demography and Nicola BEER, Vice-President of the European Parliame draw some conclusions on this phase of the CoFoE.

VERHOFSTADT, Guy (Renew, BE)

statement

future of the European Union (T)

ŠUICA, Dubravka (EPP, HR, EC)

BEER, Nicola (Renew, DE)

conference on the future of Europe (T)

european citizens' panel (T)

Conference on the Future of Europe - Statements by Guy VERHOFSTADT and Dubravka ŠUICA, Co-Chairs of the Executive Board and Nicola BEER, Vice-President of the European Parliament

SOUNDBITE (English), Dubravka &#352;UICA, CO chair of Conference of the Future of Europe , The key idea of this conference was to make European citizens feel that they can influence drafting European policies so that this is not the Brussels bubble, but that this is not the top down policy. But there is a bottom up approach and this is what we want to achieve. And the reason why we will stop on 9th on May with big event here in Strasbourg is because we need a second part of our mandate in order to implement these conclusions

SOUNDBITE (English), Dubravka &#352;UICA, CO chair of Conference of the Future of Europe, The citizens were deliberating and they came out with the 178 recommendations, so these recommendations, together with the recommendations from the digital platform and from national parts, should be somehow clustered into different topics. This will be done by three co-chairs. I'm one of them by our executive board, which is only the decision making body in this conference, but without voting. So this should be done in a consensual way

SOUNDBITE (English), Guy VERHOFSTADT, CO chair of Conference of the Future of Europe, Everybody also sees the high quality of the recommendations that have been made of those proposals that are in depth proposals, certainly those that refer to the situation we have now in Ukraine. And so they are talking about end of unanimity. They a joint armed forces for the European Union, they want an energy union the fastest as possible. So if you look to these recommendations, even those that were formulated before the dramatic events in Ukraine, it's a very good recommendations because they respond really to what is happening on the ground

SOUNDBITE (English), Guy VERHOFSTADT, CO chair of Conference of the Future of Europe, So we will certainly after the 9th of may organize something with all the citizens involved. That said, the 9th of May is not the end of the whole conference. We will have the conclusions of the conference and there is more and more pressure, I think, and more and more there is the idea to to launch immediately one or other type of convention in Europe to do a refundation of the European Union in the light of the dramatic events that are happening in our neighborhood and in Ukraine, because everybody sees that this union needs to be reformed

SOUNDBITE (English), Nicola BEER (Renew, DE), MEP 9th parliamentary term, We now take the propositions and the recommendations of the citizens on board and are discussing on which road we can aim this goal. They have a clear vision of Europe and now we have to translate this in political tools and this will be the next steps and the next discussion so that we can afterwards have a sort of action plan to go with that also for the legislators

SOUNDBITE (English), Nicola BEER (Renew, DE), MEP 9th parliamentary term, Now we are on the track and this is the most important so that we really now have conclusions which will matter. And this in and consent not only with citizens, but also with commission and council, so that we are acting on the case and deliver for citizens