Reflecting on Europe - How Europe is perceived by people in regions and cities

Abstract

Since 2016, the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) has been listening to over 40,000 citizens in 110 regions and 156 cities and municipalities in 30 European countries. This exercise branded “Reflecting on Europe” was given a strong boost in November 2016, when the President of the European Council asked the CoR to engage citizens in a debate on the future of Europe. This is the final report on the results which is submitted to the European Council along with the formal Opinion of the CoR. At the heart of the exercise, there have been active members of the CoR, who initiated dialogues with citizens in town halls, regional parliaments, local councils, schools and universities. By their very nature, these dialogues were usually not held in capital cities and they were not meant to talk “to” people but with them instead. By October 2018, 176 CoR members have been engaged in around 180 local dialogues involving about 20,000 participants. In parallel, the CoR also asked citizens to have their say on Europe and to share their views and concerns via an online survey and a mobileapp, which was made available in the 24 official languages of the EU since autumn 2017. So far, over 22,000 people took part in this unique exercise, which delivers some interestinginsights into the way people want to see the EU developing.