THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION REPORT. Europe in a period of transition

HOW CAN PARTICIPATION IN THE CONFERENCE ON THE FUTURE OF EUROPE BE IMPROVED FOR ORGANISED CIVIL SOCIETY AND CITIZENS? 35 Visentini, the Economic and Social Committee and the Regions Committee. Regarding the plenary, due to the latest negotiations that are reflected in the rules of procedure, important improvements have been made. This is made up of 433 representatives, meaning 108 representatives from the European Parliament (25% of the total), 108 represent- atives from National Parliaments (25% of the total); 54 representatives of the European Union Council (12% of the total), 3 representatives from the European Com- mission (1% of the total), 18 representatives from the European Economic and Social Committee (4% of the total), 18 representatives from the Committee of Regions (4% of the total), 8 representatives from social partners (2% of the total), 8 representatives from civil society (4% of the total) and 108 representatives of citizens and national events that, in turn, are divided into 80 citizens chosen at random, 27 representatives of national events chosen by each Member State and the President of the Young European Forum. Nevertheless, it now seems that it has been newly modified to include 14 new representatives (12 more representatives from the Committee of Regions and 4 more for the social partners) which would make a total of 449 representatives plus the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy as an observer. However, it is clear that there are two major imbal- ances: on the one hand, between the representatives from institutions and from citizens and civil society, as there are 273 of the former and 88 of the latter; and, on the other hand, the imbalance between the citizen rep- resentatives, of which there are 80, although chosen at random, and representatives from civil society, of whom there are 8. However, we should consider it a considerable im- provement on the proposals to the CoFoE Executive Board back in April, as we understand the increase to have come in the number of citizens, previously zero and now 80, and in civil society and social partners which have risen from two to eight respectively, in the Commit- tee of Regions and the Economic and Social Committee (that in both cases go from two to eighteen) and the appearance of a new group – representatives of events – with twenty-seven (one per State).We can thereby state that the increase of non-institutional representatives is rising to 160, while representatives from the institutions remain at 273. In this case, representation from the in- stitutions drops, as a percentage, from over 95% to a little over 63%. Regarding the content of the Conference on the Future of Europe, the Declaration from the Spanish Fed- eral Council of the European Movement on 20 January mentioned that the major topics to be addressed by the European Conference should at least include: − Improving European democratic quality. − Recovering the European model of society and, therefore, broadening competences in the field of social policy. − Going into greater depth on the Economic and Mon- etary Union with the development of the Banking Union and the Fiscal Union. − The weakness of the migratory policy that, until now, has not been supported by sufficiently consistent competence from the Union. − The Green Deal to develop a sustainable model, that helps provide an effective and ambitious response to the current problem of climate change. − Developing our own digital and technological model inspired by European ethics. − Foreign policy and defence to achieve a stronger Eu- rope in the world. − Education and European culture. Therefore, we, the CFEME, are raising eight topics that are quite similar to those proposed by the European Parliament and to the COREPER, although I believe that they are better formulated and in a more appropriate order. Furthermore, we are including two more points that are not in the other proposals that are migratory policy and education and culture.We understand that the European Commission wishes to debate its priorities and the transnational lists.These are not incompatible, as the