Structure of the European Citizens’ Assembly
To provide credibility and trust in the process of organising a European Citizens’ Assembly (ECA) it would consist of 27 national assemblies (or 28 with United Kingdom), each with a randomly-selected group of citizens, according to basic demographic criteria. This will ensure that citizens in each country would have more interest in, and a better chance of following, the meetings and interest groups would have easier access to it to present their disparate points of view. The 27 national assemblies would exchange information about expert opinions that are heard in each country as well as the positions of diverse stakeholders. These national gatherings would culminate in a single European event, the ECA, in order that participants of 27 countries can meet directly. The aim of this design is to respect national perspectives, to bring the democratic process closer to home, while at the same time enabling a dialogue across the whole European Union.
The size of the national Citizens’ Assemblies (nCAs) could vary from 50 to 120 participants, depending on each country’s population size. The exact formula would be determined in advance and should be large enough to be trusted by the society. Each country would use four basic demographic criteria – age, gender, education level and geographic (large city/small city/rural) – plus additional criteria relevant to a particular country, e.g. language or minority groups.
Every person with a right to vote in elections to the European Parliament should be able to potentially receive an invitation to become a member of the nCA and the later ECA.