The Travelling Assembly

[Please note this latest version was made public on 25 May 2025, after the final meeting (External link) of the 2024/25 pilot Assembly]

Steps? (Vienna spirit)

Participation

• Participants of the Citizens’ Assembly should be EU residents over 18 years old, regardless of their nationality, who spend at least one year in an EU country. Participation is mandatory with certain exceptions (e.g. illness, parents of children with special needs, caregivers). Politicians and public officials are not allowed to participate, in order to avoid conflict of interest. 

Funding

• The Assembly should be funded from the EU budget. 
• The participants receive daily allowances and reimbursements for travel and accommodation. 
• Ensuring full financial transparency during the Citizens’ Assembly and two years afterwards by providing public financial reports.

Organisation

• The Citizens’ Assembly would take place in person during the weekends (with work justification if needed). The mandate of the Assembly lasts one year and meetings are organised approximately four times per year. As part of the Assembly, the participants would receive training on deliberation and consultation with experts on the topic they are discussing. The experts should be selected in a way that they represent different views on the topic. For transparency and inclusion, website of the Assembly and social media accounts would be created and the Assembly meetings would be livestreamed to the general public.

Procedures and rules

• The EU institutions suggest a list of topics which are policy priorities, the Assembly participants can add new topics and they make the final decision. The final result of deliberation is legally binding. 
• Managerial board would be established with a mandate of 5 years, consisted of academia/experts in deliberative democracy, CSOs and representatives of Assembly participants.
• 300 participants would be selected by sortition and represent the demographic characteristics of the EU population (gender, age, education, profession, region, ethnicity, language, etc.).

National Assemblies

• Setting a recommendation for organising citizens’ assemblies on national levels and providing guidelines.