Athens, 9 November 2021

Inter-parliamentary debate on expectations of national parliaments from Conference on Future of Europe

An inter-parliamentary debate was held today, organised by the Constitutional Affairs Committee of the European Parliament on the expectations of national parliaments for the Conference on the Future of Europe. The Hellenic Parliament was represented by Marietta Giannakou and Yannis Bournous, members of the Conference on the Future of Europe.

In particular, the co-chairs of the Conference’s Executive Committee, MEP Guy Verhofstadt, European Commissioner Dubravka Šuica and Slovenian Deputy Minister for EU Affairs Gašper Dovžan briefed the participating MEPs and MPs on the progress of the Europe-wide discussion on the future of Europe, taking place through the Conference, and listened to their concerns and views.

Mrs Giannakou during her intervention expressed her satisfaction with her participation in this endeavour of participatory democracy, which demonstrates that there is no democratic deficit in the Union, considering that the citizens can submit their views through the multilingual digital platform. She stressed that citizens should be up to date on European governance, i.e. who does what and why, so that they can get closer to EU institutions. Finally, she asked for the results of the working group meetings in the framework of the Conference to be available in written form, in order to increase its transparency and effectiveness.

For his part, Mr Bournous said that the Conference on the Future of Europe has raised expectations among European citizens and expressed the hope that the conclusions that will be reached will produce profound and concrete changes that will fulfil the needs of the citizens and will also lead to a change in the Treaty on the functioning of the EU. He pointed out, however, that the role of national parliaments at the Conference is insufficient.

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