Democratization of Democracy: The Conference on the Future of Europe as a Role Model?

In the recent years there has been much talk about the erosion of liberal democracy, which has been manifested in various disturbing developments: from decreasing trust of citizens in the institutions of representative democracy and decreasing voter turnout to the growing political and societal polarization and the rise of the populist radical Right that promotes ethnic nationalism and attacks civil rights and individual liberties.

Against the backdrop of these developments, the European Union has launched the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE), one of the most ambitious democratic innovations in their history. The CoFoE is a Europe-wide citizen assembly that is tasked to deliberate about solutions for Europe's most pressing challenges such as the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change and social justice.

Find out whether the CoFoE lives up to the ambitions it sets to reinvogerote European democracy from a theoretical point of view in the Euractiv Op-Ed by FES Democracy of the Future researcher Filip Milačić below.

Read contribution:
Democratization of Democracy: The Conference on the Future of Europe as a Role Model?  (euractiv.com)