Your neighbour is pro-European

What if your neighbour had contributed to shaping European Union policy for the next 50 years?

Maybe he did.

Through the Conference on the Future of Europe, 800 randomly selected individuals informed by experts were able to share their vision for a better Europe with elected officials. Over three weekends, 800 citizens from all over Europe came together in groups of 200 to discuss how the European Union could better solve their problems in terms of health, social, foreign, economic and environmental policies.

Your neighbour, among these individuals, may then have been selected by his peers to represent their interests over five more weekends of intense discussions at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Here, national parliamentarians, members of the European Parliament, Commissioners, diplomats, Ministers, social partners and representatives of organised civil society came together with your neighbour and his peers to shape proposals into a concrete agenda for EU policy.

Now, you may say that your neighbour is actually a Eurosceptic?

It turns out that, through discussions with individuals from the other 26 member states and after being informed by experts, your neighbour found out what our European values are all about and started dreaming of a better European Union.

Aware of the many imperfections of the EU, he is now hoping that national governments, Commissioners and parliamentarians share his and his peers’ vision and implement their proposals for improvement.

This is why bringing people together to shape public policy works.

Such processes can harness the emotions of participants, help them make informed decisions and embrace necessary change, unlike referenda. Therefore, they have the potential to counterbalance all too often emotionally charged debates about politically charged issues, regularly based on misinformation. Now, we need to promote these initiatives and multiply them at all levels of society, so that we can dream together. Because politics doesn’t need to be a game with winners and losers. Ideally, we all win.