Can a group of strangers solve Europe’s biggest problems?

European Union

2 Apr

If you got a knock on your door from someone inviting you to Brussels to hash out some EU policies…you’d think it was a scam, right? Us, too. At least, that was the case until last week, when our producer Wojciech went to report on a European Citizens’ Panel, an event designed to allow 150 randomly selected Europeans to weigh in on some of the EU’s thorniest problems. This week we’re taking a deep dive into the ins and outs of what seems like the nerdiest game show ever. How do these panels work? What do they actually achieve? And crucially, are they worth the cost?

KATY LEE:
Welcome back to The Europeans. It is a podcast for people who believe that Europe is more than just a geographical term. And it's also for those who aren't sure yet that they're willing to give it a shot.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Well, I'm certainly willing to give it a shot.

KATY LEE:
Then this is the show for you. Hi, Dominic.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Hi, Katy. Nice to be talking again. Is all well over there?

KATY LEE:
It is. Do you know what? I wanted to talk about something that's been going down here in Paris that I've noticed. The cycle lanes have been taken over of late by commuters on roller skates.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
That's so fun.

KATY LEE:
Are you seeing this in the Netherlands?

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
No, I don't think I'm seeing that here in Amsterdam. But I kind of wish I was. That sounds great. How 80s.

KATY LEE:
Because it was also the case in London when I went there a few weeks ago as well. And I'm not talking rollerblades. I'm talking proper 1980s style roller skates.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
That's amazing.

KATY LEE:
But commuters, people going to work with a little work bag. What is going on? Is this a TikTok thing? Have I missed something?

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
It's probably a TikTok thing. I hope they're wearing like their elbow pads and their knee pads.

KATY LEE:
They are. That's another thing that makes it look gloriously 80s. I'm super into it. I will not be commuting this way myself, but I'd like to see it. Have you been over there in Amsterdam?

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Fine. You know, I'm just settling in with my new cats at home. One of them wants to sit on my neck the entire time, which is really sweet. But I'm a bit worried I might be allergic to her.
It's not cat allergies. It's hay fever, right? Fingers crossed.

KATY LEE:
Yes. Tell yourself that.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Anyway, enough talk about my cats. I guess we should probably talk about some European bureaucrats or something.

KATY LEE:
I'm about to do something very clever here. From bureaucats to bureaucrats.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Is that incredibly clever? Does that make sense?

KATY LEE:
I'm rolling with it. Yes, listeners, we're doing something a little bit different this week. And we are heading into Brussels. I sometimes worry that because we talk about the European Union semi often, people listening to this podcast think that we're some kind of like official European Union podcast. But we're really not.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yeah, I think of anything we like often try to avoid the more like wonky Brussels policy side of things. Because it can be quite alienating to talk about that stuff. And honestly, I think one of the things I've realised is a lot of people working in the EU institutions know that. And it's so hard to get people to engage in what's happening in these corridors of power and to like involve people in the decision making. But we were actually invited to an event that actually sounded like quite an interesting exercise in how to engage real European people in this very complicated policymaking.

KATY LEE:
It sounded a bit like a game show.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
It did. So for once we thought, maybe we should actually step into this Brussels bubble and see what the water's like. And I say we, but this is probably the moment I should tell you we're not alone in the studio today. We're here with producer Wojciech Oleksiak. Hi, Wojciech.

KATY LEE:
Hi, Wojciech.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Hi, hello. How are you doing?

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Good. Why are you here?

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Because you sent me to Brussels two weekends ago, I suppose.

KATY LEE:
You make it sound like we forced you into it. Can I just remind people, Brussels is a criminally underrated city. It is a cool town. It has great bars. It has great food and music. But yeah, it's true. We did ask you if you might be willing to take a trip to the Belgian capital. And can you tell everyone why we inflicted this hardship upon you?

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Because we were invited to observe and report on the European Citizens’ Panel. And I already have a question to ask you. And this is, had you heard of these before we got that email?

KATY LEE:
Vaguely, I guess. The basic idea is that you ask a bunch of ordinary people from all kinds of different backgrounds to come together and brainstorm the kinds of policies they'd like to see, right? So that we can have policies that better reflect how normal people think about politics. Who knows? Maybe they'll come up with ideas that are different from what politicians are coming up with. And yeah, these kind of events have become quite trendy in recent years. They've popped up all over Europe. We actually have a permanent citizens assembly here in Paris to help shape local policies. I think it's pretty cool.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
So that would be a very local example, right? And what I didn't know is that the EU has been running this kind of citizens’ panel on a Europe-wide scale and also for a few years now.
And you know, I guess it's no secret that the EU feels abstract to a lot of Europeans. A lot of people express that it doesn't really feel relevant to their everyday lives. You know, in my region where I live, Central and Eastern Europe, this is the butt end of many hilarious jokes about bureaucracy and inefficiency. And I guess in pretty much every EU country, politicians often like to present EU decisions as having been made by these faceless eurocrats in Brussels, even though national governments play a key role in the process of making these decisions. So yeah, the EU first started running citizens panels in 2022, and there's been eight of them now, trying to help Brussels shape its policy on everything from food waste to how we should spend the EU budget. And the one that we were invited to come and watch unfold two weeks ago was about preparedness.

KATY LEE:
Preparedness. What are we talking about when we talk about preparedness?

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yeah, I hear this word a lot. And I always think preparedness for what? Like I'm preparing to have my lunch in an hour. But presumably, that's not what we're discussing here at an EU level.

KATY LEE: Dominic's lunch.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
I have to say you should feel kind of lucky that this is what comes to mind when you hear this word.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Privilege!

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
So preparedness is our ability to quickly respond to crisis of different kinds. So for me, as a person living next to Russia, I'm worrying about how I will protect my close ones if an invasion starts. It's our evacuation bags, our cash reserves, stockpiles, our discussions about plans A, B and C if such a thing happens. I guess for people in the south of Europe, it probably immediately brings to mind wildfires, floods, migration crisis, maybe memories of the recent blackout in Portugal and Spain. Then, you know, for those in the north, the staggering effects of climate change they're preparing for.

KATY LEE:
And what is the EU's role in preparing us for these potential crises or crises that are already, well, already happening, really?

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
So it's not the main body responsible for that. Our national governments are. But it's trying to help coordinate international efforts on that front and to promote the idea of preparedness. So for example, we talked about it when last year the EU released an information booklet asking citizens to make sure they have a basic survival kit at home. Do you remember that?

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I do. And I actually now have my survival kit at home with my solar powered radio, water, food and paracetamol.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Yeah, proud of you.

KATY LEE:
I think it's quite fitting that the EU would try to organise a citizens panel on this topic. Like this is something that affects all of us, but we do probably think about it in different ways depending on where we are in Europe and our personal situations. So yeah, I find it quite pleasing that the European Commission would organise a panel where it can hear directly from citizens about, yeah, how they think about all of this.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
It did seem like people had a lot to share and that this tool could be really useful on that occasion.

KATY LEE:
You call it a tool. What is this thing, this citizens’ panel – what is it supposed to fix or build?

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Basically, what the EU does here is bring 150 randomly selected Europeans into a room and ask them to come up with recommendations that then go straight to the European Commission and feed into its work on a specific strategy or new legislative proposals.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Okay, I'm sorry to get into the nitty gritty immediately, but like, are the European Commission obliged to incorporate the suggestions of these ordinary citizens? Or can they just be like, nice ideas, but no thanks?

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Well, it's the Commission asking for input itself. So it would be pretty awkward if they just put it in the drawer. But of course, the question of how much of the citizens’ conclusions actually end up becoming EU law was probably the most central one throughout the whole event. And I promise we'll get to that a bit later in the episode.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Anyway, sorry, I interrupted your flow. So you were saying the Commission invites 150 random Europeans. And yeah, I assume you were there, not as one of those 150 people, but as a journalistic observer.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Exactly.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
But how do you become one of them? Why wasn't I selected?

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Very glad you asked because that's actually my favourite part of all this. Can I read you some original Brussels-speak explaining how it's supposed to work?

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Do you even have to ask?

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Okay. ‘Recruiting panels that represent diversity is essential to facilitate vibrant discussions and ensure – this word is in every EU communication at least five times.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Ensure.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
– And ensure that those discussions reflect a wide variety of perspectives and opinions.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I actually think that's not so bad as far as Brussels speak goes. It really could be worse.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Could be better too.

KATY LEE:
Your tolerance has been increased in recent years, Dominic.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Yeah, it's true. But I had a chance to talk with a European Commission spokesperson, Eva Hrnicirova, who explained it to me in human.

EVA HRNICIROVA:
Basically, people who come here to Brussels to take part in the citizens panel are randomly selected people and we have different criteria of the selection.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
These are geography. So a representative mix of all EU countries plus a representative proportion of big cities and smaller towns and villages is gender, age, education, socioeconomic background.

EVA HRNICIROVA:
And what is an important factor for us is also an approach to the European Union, to the European integration, because we don't want to hear only from people who think that the European Union is a good thing. We also want to hear from eurosceptics because their opinions can be valuable to us.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Also, one third of participants have to be under 30. And the recruitment process can be quite funny because it's highly automated. A computer selects random postal codes and then EU representatives actually go door to door, explain the concept and leave people surveys to fill in.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
What?

KATY LEE:
Oh, they literally knock on people's doors and ask if they want to travel to Brussels and spend a few days advising the EU on its next policies?

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I love that.

KATY LEE:
That is wild.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
But this is exactly what's happening. And what would you think if they knocked on your door?

KATY LEE:
I would 100 percent think it was a scam.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK: You're definitely not alone in thinking that.

MINA:
Okay. Hi, I'm Mina. I'm 19 and I'm from Berlin, Germany.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
So please tell me, how did you get here?

MINA:
I visited my parents in a very small village and someone just rang the bell. And at first I thought it was a scam because I didn't even know that something like this really existed.

MARTIN:
Hi, I'm Martin Brian. I come from Belgium. They rang at the door. I first thought it was somebody selling some postcards or something.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Sorry, but do people sell postcards door to door in Belgium?

KATY LEE:
I love that that's the question you have about all of this.

MARTIN:
It was a bit suspicious at first, but it turned out to be true and it was immediately sold and I immediately said yes. So I'm happy to be here.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
I heard plenty of other funny stories like that. Quite a few involve people telling the outreach team to go to hell. It's a brutal job, I mean. But once the surveys are successfully handed out and later collected, they are fed into a system that selects participants based on a criteria I mentioned before.

KATY LEE:
So no humans are involved in deciding who actually gets to come to Brussels?

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Nope. Zero humans. It's all done by an algorithm.

KATY LEE:
Interesting.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Then, all the lucky participants are invited to take part in three three-day sessions, two in person in Brussels and one online in between.

KATY LEE:
That is quite a big ask, like taking that many days out of your regular life. That's not easy. I mean, do people get paid for the time that it takes to take part in all of this?

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Paid is a big word. They get an allowance of 80 euro per day, which is supposed to compensate for them taking a day off at work or uni, school. And also as remuneration for working for the commission rather than having some rest on the weekend. And of course, 80 euro might be something for some people and not that much for others. So it raises questions for me about how inclusive it really is.

I asked Miriam Alba Reina about it. She was one of the experts supporting citizens during their discussions. And she works for the Red Cross as a disaster management officer.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Did you feel that we were living for the three days in the microcosm of Europe, given the number of people you met here?

MIRIAM ALBA REINA:
I think it was a nice attempt. And I also want to think that being here is a privilege. If you have kids and you can’t leave your kids with somebody else, you're going to say no.
If you are an older adult and you've never left your village and you have nobody to come with you and you speak no word of English, that is also, I mean, there is a certain bias in the process. We haven't mentioned a lot about people that are not in the system. We haven't mentioned migrants. And all of this is also part of our society and we didn't manage to bring them here. Please don't ask me how we make that work, because I probably am not going to have an answer.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
What actually helps with inclusivity is that participants who need support can bring someone with them. During the coffee breaks, I ended up having some lovely conversations with parents of some younger participants or with grandchildren who were there with some older attendees.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Sorry, people were there with their parents. Are you saying there were kids taking part in this?

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Yeah, because young people are the only part of the EU population that is by design overrepresented on this panel. And yes, some participants are as young as 16 years old. Also, typically for the EU proceedings, everyone could and was encouraged to speak their own native language. This obviously required more than 70 translators and a whole elaborate setup of booths, mics and headsets. But it worked. And I can't say I was unimpressed. Sorry for this hashtag deep alert thought no one asked for, but this very thing made me reflect on how remarkable and rare the European Union really is. We are one of the most fragmented continents with vastly different languages and cultures every few hundred kilometres. And yet we are making the effort and spending all this money to create a platform that at least attempts to resemble a round table. Like you can imagine a world in which they would force participants to speak English or French, but it would make it much less fair and inclusive, right?

KATY LEE:
I don't think a lot of French people would care that it was less inclusive. They'd be quite happy if the whole thing was in French. But it is amazing. It is, though, quite a lot of pressure on these 150 people taking part to represent in some way more than 450 million people living here in the EU. Isn't that too much weight on their shoulders?

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Yeah. So part of this project is the Citizens’ Engagement Platform, where anyone can chip in with their ideas online. And these contributions are then supposed to be combined with the results of the in-person citizens panels. I visited the platform, wasn't too impressed, but you should definitely all go and check it out for yourselves. I'll put a link in the show notes.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
OK, so this random and almost but not perfectly representative group meets in Brussels and they're there to discuss disaster preparedness. Is there some kind of specific policy on this that they're supposed to be feeding into?

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Yeah. Last year, the European Commission released a document I had no idea about. It's called the EU Preparedness Union Strategy.

KATY LEE:
Sorry, it's called the EU Preparedness Union Strategy.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Yes, it is.

KATY LEE:
The European Union Preparedness Union Strategy.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Yeah.

KATY LEE:
That is literally the clunkiest name for anything I have ever heard. These people need an editor.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Anyway, it's a document that names the biggest threats to our society and offers some ideas as to how we can prepare to face them. And what the Commission wanted from the citizens’ panel was advice from ordinary people about how the principles outlined in the document should be implemented at the local level.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
To ensure it's as effective as possible.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
That's the idea. But honestly, I wasn't sure what I was going to find in Brussels. Was this just a big PR exercise for the EU to be able to show us that it makes an attempt to reach beyond the bubble? Or was it a genuine attempt to make policies that actually reflect what people want from the EU? Let me take you to Brussels and tell you what went down there.

[MUSIC]

KATY LEE:
Hey, listeners, I am briefly interrupting this podcast to ask you, are you having a good time? Personally, I don't know any other podcast that managed to make learning about the workings of European democracy this enjoyable. If you like what we're doing here, we would love it if you would consider helping us to make more podcasts like this one by signing up to send us a little bit of money each month at patreon.com/europeans podcast. Big thanks this week go to the latest amazing supporters who've joined us” Carla, Madison, Adrian, Rosie, Benjamin, Meta and the fantastically named Pensive Elephant. Thank you so much for making this podcast possible. All right. Back to the show.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
When I arrived in Brussels, I realised two things. First, in over five years working on the team, I had not ventured into the Brussels bubble even once.

KATY LEE:
It's true. I mean, we've been there a couple of times without you. We actually made a series called Bursting the Bubble, which was about trying to figure out how the various EU institutions work. But that was all the way back in like 2019, 2020.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
OK, so just before I joined you.

KATY LEE:
Yeah.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
So in all my time covering EU news and politics for you, I had never actually stepped into the belly of the beast. So this episode is very much a Wojciech the Tourist report on what I saw.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I'm hoping for all your like Brussels ice cream recommendations.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
I didn't have much success on that front. But the first thing I noticed is that I was not the only journalist there, obviously. Although they did not call us journalists. They called us multipliers.

KATY LEE:
Multipliers. Brussels speak alert.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I'm not sure I like that. Like, doesn't calling you multipliers suggest they want megaphones for their ideas rather than critical journalists?

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
You might be onto something here. I quickly realised many of these so-called multipliers, there were about 50 of us, were influencers. I met a policewoman from Germany with hundreds of thousands of followers, a digital nomad and lifestyle blogger from Croatia and some hilarious educational creators from Finland. And I later learned that the Commission is trying to get a 50-50 mix of influencers and journalists to reach people with different habits as to where they look for information.

KATY LEE:
Interesting. It does make me uncomfortable that like such a big proportion of the people invited, half of them were influencers rather than journalists, because obviously trained journalists are much more likely to observe this whole thing with like a critical perspective, much more than influencers who are, you know, used to saying nice things about the people and brands that have invited them to stuff. Having said that, if part of the point of this thing is to reach out to ordinary Europeans and show them that people like them are being invited to actually shape policies, that's probably a good approach, right? I hate to say it, but your average European is paying less and less attention to legacy media, but they are following lifestyle bloggers from Croatia and apparently German policewomen.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Yes, absolutely. And what I can tell you is that the EU was a big part of these influencers' content for a few days. Millions of people were reached. There's no doubt about it.
Anyway, back to what happened there. It all started with a full day of everyone sitting in a massive hall, listening to experts' discussions and EU officials' speeches. The first one to go was the EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management, Hadja Lahbib.

HADJA LAHBIB:
Preparedness is not just for governments alone. Being ready for the unexpected is a shared responsibility. But this new reality does not have to be a source of fear. It can be a spark for change. The idea is very simple. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
And right after this rather generic speech, the kind that makes you think, OK, this is very EU, lots of big words, not much substance, things suddenly got real because people were invited to ask questions. And one guy raised his hand very energetically and went straight into full attack mode. And he said, Mrs. Commissioner, when will the EU apologise to its citizens for forcing them to take vaccines that pose a serious threat to their health during the COVID-19 pandemic?

KATY LEE:
Oh, wow.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Wow.
KATY LEE:
Well, I mean, they did say they wanted to represent the whole of the EU population in this panel. I guess that includes anti-vaxxers.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Right. And, you know, the whole room went silent. And I would bet good money that everyone was thinking exactly what you just said.

KATY LEE:
And how did Hadja Lahbib handle that?

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Like someone with a lot of media training. She gave a very general answer about the need to balance the common good with individual freedom. I was sitting quite close to the guy who asked the question. I can tell you he was not happy with the response. After that, the rest of the day was fairly uneventful. But whenever citizens were given the chance to ask questions, COVID kept coming back in different forms.

KATY LEE:
It's interesting to me that COVID was the thing that it kept coming back to. Because if you ask me to think about disaster preparedness, the thing that my mind goes to is first preparing for the possibility of a wider war with Russia. And then number two is preparing for climate change induced disasters, you know, like more fires, more floods, worse fires and floods.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Well, I mean, sorry to interrupt, but like many experts argue that you can't separate like pandemics from climate change disasters. They're connected. Personally, I'm really scared about the next pandemic and the fact that I feel like there's even less capacity from citizens to accept restrictions from government and vaccines and treatments.

KATY LEE:
Yeah, I can't wait for this double whammy of pandemic and climate change come together. That'll be super fun. But yeah, I mean, I guess it does make sense that it kept coming back to COVID, right? Because it is really something that we experienced universally.
I mean, some of us are more preoccupied by Russia than others. Some of us are more preoccupied by forest fires than others because of where we live. But COVID is a crisis that we all live through, that we know we were unprepared for.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
And also, I think that it was the crisis that exposed our country's inability to react efficiently to a big time crisis. All over Europe, there were big problems with cross-border coordination. Every country introduced their own very different measures. And it all ended up being very symbolic as a whole, with questions around transparency still remaining, to say the least, right?

KATY LEE:
Absolutely. There's still a lot of unfinished business.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Yeah. And then on day two, the citizens were split into 12 much smaller, more intimate groups. And COVID, again, took centre stage almost immediately. The first question they were asked was about their experience of crisis. And apart from a few people, almost everyone in my group brought up COVID. One younger participant burst into tears while talking about it and decided to leave the room for a while. In the group I was following, people were supportive towards one another, and there wasn't much tension.
But the expert you heard earlier, Miriam Alba Reina, had a different experience.

MIRIAM ALBA REINA:
No, that wasn't the case in most of the rooms. I also want to guarantee a little bit the privacy of the citizens that we're sharing. But we have, COVID was one of the points that we all lived across. And there were certain decisions given by certain member states in which vaccines became compulsory. And they have a very strong disruptive effect on the trust that citizens have towards their own governments.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
So these groups, led by facilitators, worked for a good 10 hours, with some breaks, trying to identify the most pressing gaps in their country's preparedness systems and how these could be addressed at the EU level. And here, indeed, everyone focused on their own experience. Portuguese participants told the group what failed during the recent floods, fires and blackouts. Germans talked about disinformation campaigns shaking the country, etc. It was an extremely slow and painstaking process, but it also felt like something that should be happening far more often and in many more places. Completely random people were given the chance to share their views with other completely random people, who listened carefully and learned from one another. They were all a bit overwhelmed and tired by the end of the day, but I did get a chance to speak to some of them.

TOBI:
I'm Tobi, coming from Germany, 64 years old, and I'm still in business. I'm an IT professional.
I'm working in Munich and have a big family, three kids. It's interesting because we are learning a lot about the individual challenges people had, young people, old people, regarding personal crisis, crisis in the community or with climate changes. This is, first of all, very interesting to understand that maybe every person is affected of that. This is the first thing.

GAIA:
Hi, I'm Gaia. I'm almost 20 years old and I'm from Italy, Catania, Sicily. I'm specifically liking this day today because it's from citizen to other citizen. It's not something far away. It's right at the table and it's very nice.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Here's Martin, the Belgian guy.

MARTIN:
It's great meeting all kinds of Europeans because that's really what this is about and voicing both our opinions, sharing our experiences and hopefully, well, trying to get Europe to align with what people really need and want.
WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
And Mina, the 19 year old from Germany.

MINA:
I don't know if we will work something very specific out, but I definitely feel like this will contribute to a better understanding of the challenges that we have to face in different countries.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
And then, deep into day two, some very telling moments happened. During one of the breaks, this group, ranging from teenagers to pensioners, started having genuine fun trying to pronounce each other's names in their own languages or sharing some trivia about their languages. It was incredibly endearing. It really made me wish the EU could offer this kind of experience to all its citizens. You know, where they just embrace this European diversity on a very basic level and where it just feels fun and positive. And just as I was drifting into lofty thoughts about unity and a vision of flawless collaboration above all divides, it was time to choose one person to present what the group came up with during the final joint session.

KATY LEE:
Oh God, is this where it all goes wrong?

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Well, yeah, it took ages and quickly slipped into something close to Monty Python style comedy. Not only could they not agree on who to pick. They also got stuck in a long and rather circular debate about how the selection process itself should even work. Should we raise hands? Should it be a secret ballot? Should we point at the person we like best on one, two, three? For a while, it felt like it was going absolutely nowhere.

KATY LEE:
This whole thing sounds like such a great encapsulation of what the EU is. You've got people coming together across language divides and cultural divides, having this beautiful experience together. And then you've got the whole thing descending into administrative chaos. I love it.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Yeah, it's exactly what happened.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Sorry, I know this is completely irrelevant to the main point you're making, but like what did they agree on eventually? Which method?

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
So surprisingly on pointing at the person they like best after counting one, two, three. But eventually they seem to be happy with the result. So we wrapped up the day on a positive note.

KATY LEE:
Aww.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
The last day felt a lot like living inside of the EU Barometer, which in case you're not familiar with it, is a series of European Commission public surveys about what Europeans think.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I knew I should have gone to this event. I love the Eurobarometer.

KATY LEE:
We love Eurobarometer. It is my favourite website.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
We’re such Euro dorks.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Oh, who doesn't love Eurobarometer? So in the final session, representatives from all the groups shared what they came up with, specifically what they see as the main challenges.
Overall, they don't feel that we, Europeans, are well prepared for future disasters. Their worries range from our ability to defend ourselves against a foreign invasion, to how we handle natural disasters, to the quality and stability of our political systems. You know, mostly the issues you read about in the headlines.

KATY LEE:
But was there anything that stood out to you? Like anything surprising?

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Hmm, not necessarily surprising, but definitely useful for me as a journalist trying to make sense of what's happening on this continent, was that one after another, they stressed that they feel we lack reliable objective sources to refer to in times of crisis or during disputes.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Presumably, they were mostly talking about misinformation that people come across on social media platforms like TikTok, which, as we've talked about previously on this show, are the biggest sources of news for young Europeans in particular.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Yeah, but you know, hearing it repeatedly hits differently. These people expressed a real frustration, you know, the inability to find a common starting point for discussions with those who hold opposing political views.

KATY LEE:
Which is one of the most frustrating things in the post-truth era that we live in, right?

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Yeah, exactly. And the next loudest complaint I heard was about a historically low level of trust in politicians. People said they feel played, that there's more political marketing and less substance, that everything is polarising and pitting people against each other.

KATY LEE:
Okay, so misinformation, frustration with our politicians, both things that we know are on people's minds all the time these days when they think about politics. Is there anything else that people talked about that you thought was interesting?

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Yes. And this ties back to what I mentioned earlier about COVID-19 being brought up so often. Many said they feel their countries are completely unprepared for large-scale mental health crisis. And young people especially emphasise this. And you know, it's one thing to read about it in articles, but it's completely different to hear several young people across three days come to the stage and say, Hey, you left us locked up alone in our rooms and it really affected us. We understand the situation was unexpected and hard, but you clearly overlooked something and we're still struggling. And it wasn't just eye-opening for me. Here's Miriam Alba Reina again, the Red Cross disaster manager we heard from earlier.

MIRIAM ALBA REINA:
We were discussing COVID at large, and then someone took the floor and said, Well, I am 17, so I left COVID when I was 11. So all of a sudden we had a testimony of mental health lived from a child, and that was something that was very, very unique.

KATY LEE:
Wow. I mean, I have to confess that a mental health crisis was not one of the things that came to mind when I was thinking about the crises that need managing. But let's face it, that aspect of the pandemic was such a huge thing for people who were going through COVID really young, you know, when you're supposed to be living your best life, hanging out with your friends all the time. And that makes me really glad that they insisted on so many young people taking part in this citizens panel, actually.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
You know, I'm only 38 and already I heard a lot of thoughts and perspectives from the youngest group of participants I probably wouldn't come up with on my own. Yeah.
And just when we all thought it was over, waiting for the closing remarks from some EU official, the anti-vaxxer guy came back like in a blaze of glory.

KATY LEE:
He's back!

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
No way!

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Yeah, seriously. He got another chance to ask a question. Everyone was already bracing for something controversial, to say the least. And instead, he delivered a brilliant critique of some motorcade that had blocked central Brussels for a few minutes. Also, you know, making it harder to get to the actual panel on that day. And, you know, obviously this motorcade supposedly was transporting some important politician. And he was like, they talk about openness, about low carbon transport, and here they are driving these 15 massive armoured SUVs blocking the entire city. Who are they afraid of? Us? And honestly, that got the biggest round of applause of the whole three days.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Instant redemption with the one thing that everyone can get behind. Knocking people in power down a peg or two.

KATY LEE:
So on that people power note, Wojciech, where does all of this leave us? How successful was this event in making citizens feel involved in a part of EU decision making? That's exactly the question I asked Miriam, and her response really stuck with me.

MIRIAM ALBA REINA:
Well, I think it was very important to know faces. Every time we talk about citizens in Europe, and we are very diverse, and we've had also very uncomfortable discussions. And I think it is important that all of a sudden, and at the end of the day, we managed to come to grounds that are common, and that are just going back to the same idea of unity and solidarity.
For me, that was a takeaway point that I'm going to bring with me.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
So going back to the questions we asked at the beginning, what was this event really? Is it just a PR event that aims to tell you that EU is cooler than you might think? Or is it one where they actually are trying to get some new information that would inform their works? Here's what Eva Hrnicirova, the European Commission spokeswoman had to say about it.

EVA HRNICIROVA:
We simply want to hear from the citizens and we have panels organised on different topics.
This time it's preparedness and the citizens are real experts in preparedness. They can bring a valuable input, which then can feed into our further actions. You've seen the whole weekend, you've experienced why is it important, because online it can never be the same experience. And the aim of this panel is also to show people, to give them a kind of a taster how the European legislative, how the European policy is being shaped.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
And you could argue that if the Commission wanted to get input from ordinary people for its policies, it could simply read the things that people post on that EU website I mentioned, where you can follow the work of this panel, the citizens engagement platform. But I was told that the lion's share of the input the Commission is gathering from that website comes from professionals who have a stake in a given topic. And not only individual professionals, but also lobbyists, NGOs, think tanks. And these are consulted anyway when a new policy is being designed. So what they want to get here is some genuine input from individual people.
And that was exactly what happened in Brussels over those few days.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
And do you think these recommendations will actually influence the Commission's work? So this was just the first session. The next one is online and the final session will be back in Brussels next month. I was told these last meetings tend to be the most constructive and specific. Everyone was curious how this actually fits into the Commission's legislative work. So I asked Eva about it.

EVA HRNICIROVA:
European legislation is always based on wide public consultations. We consult the stakeholders before we draft the paper. We talk to member states. There is a very broad input in the beginning of each act. But this citizens panel can bring it even deeper, I think. And that's basically democracy in action. There are several regimes around us where citizens don't have such an opportunity. And where basically authoritarians just dictate to the citizens what they want. This is not the case of the European Union.

KATY LEE:
I think it's a nice answer, but it's a bit of a non-answer. Like if I was one of the people giving up loads of time to take part in the citizens panel, I would like to know more concretely whether the stuff I suggested was actually going to make it into a policy or not.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Well, another senior Commission official I spoke with gave me some very specific examples of the final recommendations from a citizens panel resulting, for example, in a new code of conduct on countering illegal hate speech online, which is a document many major digital platforms now sign before going into business in Europe. Or the citizens panel on food waste translated into the EU launching the EU Food System Monitoring Dashboard, which is an online tool to track sustainability across the food supply chain. It's not awesome as a tool, but it's a good start. And of course, the European Commission doesn't pass laws. It suggests new laws, but it's the European Parliament and national governments that vote on them. But, you know, when I think about it within the Commission's powers, I think these panels have a pretty strong impact. This other Commission official I spoke to, I loved how he ended his explanation with, you know, it's a long process, but I do believe in it.

DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yeah, and this long process is something I wanted to ask you about as a final question, Wojciech. I mean, what you've been describing sounds like a massive event, a huge logistical operation, hundreds of people flown to Brussels, ringing on people's doorbells, more than 70 translators facilitating discussions. I imagine at least several dozen people providing catering and cleaning, hotels booked, so on, so on. I dread to even think about how much this all costs. Are we sure this is the only way we can get to understand what people want? Yes, so that's been on my mind throughout the event. And it really wasn't easy to ask this question in this atmosphere of cooperation and finding common ground despite all the differences and diversity. But the critical multiplier in me had to. So first, I asked Miriam Alba Reina.

MIRIAM ALBA REINA:
This is definitely a controversial question, and I think you have a point in asking about that.
I'm not in a position to share if this is justifiable or not. What I'm hoping is that now that we have it in here, we have made Europe something tangible, something that means something else than a flag. We have seen different nationalities coming to the same ground, coming down to the very same problems, regardless of the country that you're coming from.It was also a very tangible understanding of how diversity works, because you see it and you sense it when you're in the room. But now that it's out there, we just need to make our best efforts to make something meaningful out of it. And I'm a strong advocate of having this participative democracy and how we can make it link with channels that already exist, so that it's not a one-off event. It's something that is more consultative and that becomes a practice. But it's a good starting point. Resources are definitely a point, but it's a good starting point to something that is more sustainable and hopefully also less resource demanding, let's say.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
And then I asked the same question to Eva Hrnicirova.

EVA HRNICIROVA:
To someone sceptical with such an argument, I would say, come and see. Come and see and experience it. And then after this experience, tell us whether it would be better not to organise such a panel. Of course, it consumes a lot of resources. But as I said, in democracy, we have different tools how to shape the policies, how to embed the ideas of citizens into the policies. And this is just one of the ways that we have. And the more ways we use, the more experiences we have, and the more inputs we have before we shape the policy, I think the stronger proposals we can put on the table. And obviously, these proposals then can better fit to the societies that we live in.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
This episode was reported, written and produced by me, Wojciech Oleksiak. I co-hosted it with Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer, who provided priceless editing too. The quick turnaround was possible thanks to editing from producer Morgan Childs. Music comes from Blue Dot Sessions. This podcast was produced in collaboration with our radio friends at Euranet Plus. Huge thanks to all of our supporters. You are the reason we can do this kind of on-the-ground reporting. If you'd like to help us keep making stories like this, please head to patreon.com/europeanspodcast and consider becoming a Patreon yourself, or go to europeanspodcast.com, where you can support our work with one-time donations. We'll be back next week with a regular episode of the show. No more messing around with the format for a while, we promise. But in the meantime, do not forget to subscribe to our newsletter Good Week, Bad Week on Substack. Thanks for listening and see you next week.
Bye!