Today, the Executive Board agreed to allocate more seats in the Conference Plenary to regional and local elected representatives, as well as to social partners. The 6th meeting of the Conference's Executive Board was the first one during the Slovenian Presidency of the Council.

The Executive Board amended the Rules of Procedure by adding to the Conference Plenary 6 elected representatives from regional authorities and 6 from local authorities. They also agreed to increase the number of representatives from the social partners by four, to a total of 12.

In addition, the Board exchanged views on the communication plan developed jointly by the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission. All three institutions will endeavour to continue coordinating their activities to boost public participation in the multilingual digital platform and will encourage other bodies, especially those who participate in the Executive Board and the Plenary to do likewise.

The Conference on the Future of Europe combines online and offline, local, regional, national and Europe-wide events, organised by civil society organisations and citizens, the European institutions, and national, regional and local authorities. The outcomes of these events, as well as the ideas related to the future of Europe, are being published on the multilingual digital platform. They will serve as a basis for further discussions at 4 European Citizens' Panels, comprised of the main topics of the Conference. Some 800 randomly selected citizens, reflecting the EU's socio-economical, demographic and educational diversity, will participate at several deliberative sessions of these four European Citizens' Panels, 200 citizens per panel. They will come up with ideas and recommendations that will feed into the Conference Plenaries, and ultimately into the Final Report of the Conference.

The multilingual digital platform is fully interactive: people can engage with one another and discuss their proposals with fellow citizens from all Member States, in the EU's 24 official languages. People from all walks of life and in numbers as large as possible are encouraged to contribute, and also to promote the platform on social media channels, with the hashtag #TheFutureIsYours.

Image © European Parliament, 2021