Meeting of the EP Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO) in Brussels where MEPs discuss the Conference on the Future of Europe and the role of the European Parliament. Opening statement by Gabriele BISCHOFF (S&D, DE), AFCO Vice Chair and Reporting back to committee by Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe. This transcription speech is the result of an automatic process. Check against delivery.

Brussels

VERHOFSTADT, Guy (Renew, BE)

meeting

future of the European Union (T)

Committee on Constitutional Affairs

BISCHOFF, Gabriele (S&D, DE)

Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe

The Conference on the Future of Europe and the role of the European Parliament - Committee on Constitutional Affairs: Opening Gabriele BISCHOFF (S&D, DE), AFCO Chair and reporting back by Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), co-chair of the Executive Board

SOUNDBITE (Original), Gabriele BISCHOFF (S&D, DE), AFCO Chair, - So good afternoon and welcome back to everybody. It's a pleasure to discuss with you and to have now our colleague Guy Verhofstadt as co-chair of the executriv board of the Conference on the Future of Europe to report us on the latest developments concerning the next steps on the conference, notably the preparation of the first plenary session that should take place on the 19th of June in Strasbourg.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Gabriele BISCHOFF (S&D, DE), AFCO Chair, - And prior to that, there will be a citizens event in the framework of the conference that will take place in Lisbon on the 17th of June. Here a bit more also on the constitution of the working groups and all other aspects that are relevant here.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Gabriele BISCHOFF (S&D, DE), AFCO Chair, - And I would also like to recall that on the 10th of June, the Conference of Presidents endorsed the nominative composition of the EP delegation to the Conference on the Future of Europe.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Gabriele BISCHOFF (S&D, DE), AFCO Chair, - And many members of the AFCO committee participate in the delegation. And we try regularly, really from now on to have discussions with Guy Verhofstadt and our other colleagues that participate in the meetings at every meeting that we have here in the AFCO. So I give the floor to Guy Verhofstadt and I have to say, for a maximum of 10 minutes.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - Yes, OK, I'm going to try to do that in 10 minutes. Thank you very much, Chair. Maybe the best what I can do is to give you the an overview of where we are in the preparation of the conference.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - Because we all know naturally that the besides the event we organised on the 9th of May in Strasbourg and we will have a plenary on the 19th in June in Strasbourg.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - But the real work will naturally start after the summer break when the citizens panels will be organised, when we will have the results of the discussions on the platform when we go into the plenary and in the work in working groups inside the plenary.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - So that will be from September on a very intense calendar to to follow. But I think it is a good moment before we go into the plenary of of of of of Saturday to give where we are. So as you know, we, citizens will be involved in two ways with the digital platform on an individual basis and with citizens panels organised through the conference itself.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - The digital platform that has been launched in April, meanwhile, that are a little bit more or less 17000 citizens that are participating to that platform. There are in total nearly a thousand events that are organised and announced on the platform.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - So that's certainly not bad, number of participants I think is still low, number of events is quite impressive, nearly a thousand. And what is also important to tell you concerning the topic of a European democracy, what is one of the nine boxes that you find on the digital platform, European democracy is certainly of a of a particular interest for the AFCO committee.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - There are there in total, there are more than 200 events organised on the platform and more than 730 ideas that has been launched on the platform, ideas that that are covering fields like transnational EU wide electoral lists, the right of initiative for the European Parliament, majority decisions instead of unanimity decisions.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - The Spitzenkandidaten process, the transformation of the council into a second chamber, voting Rights in all elections for EU citizens, the election of the President of the European Union and even the abolishing of the Council of the European Union are ideas that are discussed on the platform.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - To tell you that also in the in the box European democracy, what is the specific competence of AFCO, there are a lot of creative ideas that are discussed for the moment and that will find their way through the platform, into the into the citizens panels and later on into the into the plenary.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - So that's concerning the digital platform, as you know, and that's my second point, and most of you are also in the EP delegation have got already a report on this yesterday, we we have finally endorsed the whole rules of procedure of the conference.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - There was, let's be honest, quite a difference of point of view between Commission, Council and Parliament about that, because we see the conference plenary as the body wie need to discuss the reforms on the future of the European Union, that that will be done.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - So there will be at least six of these of these plenaries that will be organised with more than one session, in most of the cases, there will be 108 representatives of parliament and 100 European Parliament and 108 representatives from the national parliaments in that in that plenary.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - And inside the plenary, and that's my my next point, we will organise the work based on on what we call working groups. So it will not be the 450 total, there will be 450 members in the conference plenary to come to an agreement and to come certainly to a consensus between the four constituent components of the plenary.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - National parliaments, European Parliament, the European Commission, the European Council, it is necessary to prepare that work in working groups. There will be in total nine of these working groups.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - You know, them, they they they are exactly the same as the nine boxes that have been established on the digital platform. And we will organise them in a way that more or less, 50 people will be part of every working group and every member of the plenary will seat in one of these nine working groups.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - Two of them, so for parliament, for for for our parliament, that will, that means that 12 people will 12 members of parliament will take part in every working group, and moreover, that two of them will be chaired by by a member of parliament.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - The one on European democracy by Manfred Weber and the one on the economy, social justice and jobs by Iratxe Garcia Perez.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - In the meanwhile, that's my third point, a whole calendar of plenaries and citizens panels have been have been agreed on and will be also, this calender will be formally adopted on Saturday.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - There will be in total, as I said, at least six plenaries, with different sessions, two or three even. That will be four citizens panels that will start their work after the summer break. And these citizens panels will meet each other three times.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - So in total, there will be 12 gatherings of the citizens panels and the the work inside the citizens panels will be organised in two ways. First of all, a citizens panel will not cover all the competencies, all the boxes, but a few of the boxes.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - For example, European democracy, values, rights, rule of law, security will be dealt in one citizen's panel, climate change, environment and health in its second citizens panel. Stronger economy, social justice, including digital transformation in the third one, and the EU in the world and migration will be a citizens panel.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - And it will be the citizens panel themselves who inside that field will decide on what the priorities are that they will discuss with the help of moderators, with the help of experts and the citizens panel will have in itself internally at least 10, 15 working groups.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - So that a real debate between the citizens is possible and the conclusions of the citizens panels will then be brought by their representatives, 24 every citizen's panels towards the plenary of the conference.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - Naturally, these 800 citizens will be chosen randomly, randomly selected citizens based on on on on criteria to guarantee the sociological diversity. So nationality, European rural, socioeconomic background, gender, age, all this will be taken into account to have 200, 200 to 200 or so, four times to 200 citizens panels that are real, scientifically and in a sociological way representative for the citizens of the European Union.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - And there will be, as I already indicated, an overrepresentation of young people between 16 and 25 years old. We got in the meanwhile, the first meeting of the EP delegation that happened yesterday.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - I will not comment on that because most of you (...chat with ...) you seen you that I missed you. So I see it there. You know, I'm chairing such a big delegation, but I know everybody who was there and those who are not there. So I have a memory.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - But so we will not go into the detail because I think that everybody still remember what happened yesterday evening. And if that is not the case, then he has a little problem. If he doesn't remember what yesterday in our meeting, in our meeting was happening.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - So we are ready for the inaugural plenary session on the 19th in Strasbourg. It will be very general because it is mainly a debate between all participants about what is the goal of the conference.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - And we will naturally also approve the calendar and a number of other more formal things that need to be approved. And as I already indicated, the on the 18th of June, the day before, on Friday, there will be the important gathering of the caucuses and caucuses are the gatherings of the European political families, because this European political families are key.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - As I explained yesterday, and I want to repeat that today: there is, the conference is a unique experience because there are of three institutions, plus the national parliaments, more organising that.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - Secondly, it will be a unique experience because it is, it tries to create a balance between participatory democracy, the input of the citizens combined with representative democracy.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - The representatives of national, European Parliament, the European Commission, the European Council, deciding on what reforms to undertake and to respond to this input of the citizens.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Guy VERHOFSTADT (Renew, BE), Co-chair of the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, - So that's where we are chair, Dear Gaby, and always happy to, after the round of speakers to come back to give more precise information on a number of issues that will be raised during the debate. Thank you.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Gabriele BISCHOFF (S&D, DE), AFCO Chair, - Thank you very much Guy for this overview and I will now give...