European Citizens’ Panels

The European Citizens’ Panel on Tackling Hatred in Society has submitted its recommendations to the European Commission

Over three weekends, 150 randomly selected citizens representing all 27 EU Member States have been coming together to discuss the various causes and drivers of hatred in the EU and different fields of action to address them.

Together, the citizens have put forward a series of recommendations that will contribute to shaping future EU laws and feed into upcoming Commission initiatives.

Full list of recommendations

Find out more

What are European Citizens’ Panels?

Citizens' Panels are becoming a regular feature of democratic life in the European Union (EU). They bring together randomly-selected citizens from all 27 member states to discuss – at European level – key, upcoming proposals that affect us all.

European Citizens’ Panels see participants working together in small groups (each of around 12 people) and all together (in plenaries). A facilitation team provides support. Based on the discussions, citizens make recommendations for the European Commission to consider when defining policies and initiatives.

From mid-December 2022 to the end of April 2023, three panels – each with around 150 participants – have had the opportunity to develop concrete recommendations on some of the key initiatives of the 2023 Commission Work Programme. The first set of citizens' panels addressed the issues of food waste, virtual worlds and learning mobility.

How does a Citizens’ Panel work?

Session 1
Ideas generation
The goal of the first session is to generate ideas, and to build and group approaches that citizens find most promising for further discussion in subsequent sessions.
Session 2
Review and refinement
The goal of this session is to build on the approaches agreed in the first session and draft initial citizen recommendations. Following an iterative, 'peer review' process, citizens in working groups review and build on each other’s work, adding to the ideas. These constitute the basis for the panel to develop its final recommendations, during the concluding session.
Closing session
Conclusion
The closing session submits the conclusions of debates, together with the panel's recommendations, to the European Commission, as part of the package accompanying the relevant proposals.

How are citizens selected?

Around 150 citizens, randomly selected from the 27 member states
Representing the EU’s diversity - geography (urban/rural), gender, age, education, socioeconomic background
1/3 of participants are young people (16-25 years old)

Participants in the new generation of Citizens’ Panels are recruited through random selection. Potential participants are contacted by telephone. Recruiters use tools that generate valid telephone numbers at random (including both mobile and fixed line telephone numbers). This way a diverse, representative group can be reached.To ensure that panels reflect as far as possible the EU’s socio-demographic composition, the process ensures that recruitment is representative.

Target recruitment figures combine data from:

Eurobarometer, the annual European Union public opinion survey, and
Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office.

A quota system ensures a gender-balanced panel, and specifies that young people aged 16-25 represent a third of the panel. Other socio-demographic characteristics we take into account relate to:

education level
geographic location
occupation.

Participants from each member state are recruited in proportion to that member state’s population, while ensuring proportional representation across different groups. For smaller countries with fewer participants, the categories are covered across panels, so that smaller countries are represented.

The selection process is completely renewed for each new panel.

Recruiting representative and diverse panels is essential to facilitate vibrant discussions and ensure that those discussions reflect a wide variety of perspectives and opinions.

Concluded panels

Tackling Hatred in Society Panel

How can the EU tackling hatred in society?

Energy Efficiency Panel

How can the EU bring benefits of energy efficiency to citizens, public authorities and enterprises?

Learning mobility panel

How can we make opportunities for learning mobility a reality for everyone?

Virtual worlds panel

What vision, principles, and actions should guide the development of desirable and fair virtual worlds?

European Citizens' Food Waste Panel

What actions should be taken by EU Member States, actors in the food supply chain, citizens, and other private and public stakeholders in order to step up the effort to reduce food waste?