The Conference on the Future of Europe, which took place from 2021 to 2022, was a large-scale participatory process designed to give EU citizens a more active and influential role in setting the EU priorities. At the heart of this process was a multilingual digital platform that allowed citizens to contribute online and engage in a pan-European debate.

This new report highlights the key findings of using the online platform in the Conference. The digital platform was a crucial tool for maximizing participation, accessibility, and transparency of the process. It allowed citizens to submit ideas / proposals on various topics, from climate change to European democracy, and to comment on others' proposals. The platform's multilingualism, with content available in all 24 official EU languages, was a significant factor in its success, enabling citizens from diverse linguistic backgrounds to participate and engage with each other.

One of the main challenges faced by the Conference was ensuring proportional participation across Member States and participants' demographics. Despite efforts to promote the platform and encourage participation, some Member States and demographic groups were underrepresented. However, the platform still managed to attract a significant number of participants, with over 5 million unique visitors and more than 53,000 participants actively contributing with ideas and comments.

Key takeaways

• Integrating online digital platforms into a wider citizen engagement strategy is crucial from an inclusiveness point of view. However, how inclusive inclusiveness is, needs to be ascertained.
• While online platforms can offer new forms of participation, they work best in conjunction with in-person activities to ensure complementarity, continuity and follow-up. The online platform contributes to the extension of the participatory process to wider publics. Furthermore, the online platforms can serve as connectors of different citizen engagement processes.
• Multilingualism is essential when engaging with citizens from all over Europe (and beyond).
• Attention must be given to the transparency, accessibility, and inclusivity of online digital platforms. In addition, online spaces need to be safe, and be perceived as such by citizens, e.g., by holding accountable those that seek to undermine others or that promote violence and hatred through their contributions. Moderation is fundamental to promote fruitful debates.
• The participatory experience offered to citizens can significantly influence participation rates, with diverse interaction mechanisms, such as submitting proposals, commenting, and voting, helping to engage a diverse and extensive range of participants.
• Effective and robust analysis systems are key in online citizen engagement processes to infer the most salient contributions and/or clusters of contributions; to provide valuable insights into citizens' concerns and preferences; and to help policymakers identify agreement and disagreement on complex issues.

As the EU continues to evolve and face new challenges, it is essential to harness the potential of digital technologies to increase citizen participation in policymaking. The Conference on the Future of Europe has shown that, with the right tools and strategies, it is possible to create a more inclusive and participatory democratic process. The report's recommendations will be crucial in shaping the future of online citizen engagement in the EU.

Download the Report