9/2024 Athens

On September 2024, history was made. Two hundred randomly selected Europeans gathered in Athens for the first session of the Peoples’ Assembly for Europe, a permanent institution to ensure the people always have a seat at the decision table. Prepared, but not predetermined, by the broad “Democratic Odyssey” coalition.

But what makes this permanent European Peoples’ Assembly so special?

On Thursday, 12 September 2024, 1900 - 2100 CEST, the 2024/25 Assembly made a public launch with an online event that welcomed Members of the European Parliament, practitioners, civil society actors, citizens who had previously taken part in deliberative assemblies, academics, the broader public.

The event was simultaneously translated to many languages, so it could also be accessible to the selected Assembly members: English, German, Greek, Italian, French, Czech, Portuguese, Polish, Lithuanian and Bulgarian. Find the recordings in all languages here:

• EN https://youtu.be/w1_PgAOo5XM 
• GR https://youtu.be/8RxRh9bMiMo
• DE https://youtu.be/xIHhYr7BoTE
• FR https://youtu.be/cSGNLReLqh4
• IT https://youtu.be/Yk-nCdco-h8
• PT https://youtu.be/iMYjBaQw8MM
• BG https://youtu.be/-8wML_i4yW8
• LT https://youtu.be/g679n4Kd464
• PL https://youtu.be/-WO1vWbOdTM
• CZ https://youtu.be/Dm3urx1XhPY

At the event, we discussed past and present assemblies, to understand where to situate the Democratic Odyssey, a uniquely designed transnational people’s assembly.

Our speakers:

• Art O’Leary, Chief Executive of the Electoral Commission of Ireland who has organized the Ireland’s assembly on abortion rights
• Professor Kalypso Nicolaidis, Chair in Global Affairs at the Florence School of Transnational Governance and co-lead of the Democratic Odyssey project 
• Niccolo Milanese, founding director of European Alternatives, a civil society organisation promoting democracy, equality and culture beyond the nation state
• Sarah Händel, Board member of Mehr Demokratie e.V., one of Germany’s leading NGOs for deliberative democracy
• Brett Hennig, Co-founder and director of the Sortition Foundation, campaigning to institute the use of democratic lotteries (also called sortition) in government
• Alexiane Terrochaire - - Barbançon, Executive Board Member of the Young European Federalists (JEF Europe)
• Yves Dejaeghere, Executive Director of Federation for Innovation in Democracy Europe, Member of the G1000 Board, which is committed to democratic innovation in Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain. 
• Alex Lockwood, Extinction Rebellion and Animal Rising
• Stephanie Hartung, Germany's national citizens' representative at the EU Future Conference, co-founder of Pulse of Europe e.V. 
• Members of the European Parliament, Daniel Freund und Helmut Scholz

The event is organised by the "Power to the People", a cooperation between European Alternatives, European University Institute, Europe Calling, Mehr Demokratie, Another Europe is Possible, Citizens Takeover Europe and the ECI Campaign