The Travelling Assembly
Towards a permanent Peoples' Assembly for Europe
7. ‘Transparency is non negotiable’ - STEPS?
[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)
- Develop a culture of transparency: by embedding transparency principles, values and practices in education for all ages, teaching what transparency is, how to recognise it, essential political and social literacy to understand information, and practices to promote transparency. This education should also be for civil servants and people working in positions of authority.
- Learn from best practices: We should promote a mapping of all actors working on transparency across society at all scales of Europe, research, collect and learn from best practices, and ensure these learnings circulate amongst all governmental, media, public and private entities which have transparency obligations. An independent EU monitoring body with citizen involvement could ensure this circulation of knowledge and training, monitor and inspect implementation and propose intervention or new regulation where necessary. This body could be connected with the Fundamental Rights Agency, European Media Pluralism Monitor, European Labour Authority amongst others.
- Promote a free, plural and investigative media as an important source of transparency, anti-corruption and public understanding: by promoting and protecting investigative journalism, reinforcing professional ethics in the media, and requiring full transparency of ownership and commercial interests of media and social media platforms.
- Increase resources and interest for anti-corruption prosecution and long term monitoring of assets and interests of anyone who held public office and responsibility with life long legal responsibility
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Make impartial information accessible to the vast majority of people by establishing safeguarding authorities that will filter and debunk information. Health, media, and digital literacy interventions help people improve at judging the quality and accuracy of information or performing online tasks. Make sure that authorities communicate their messages in a clear and consistent way while working out ways to overcome communication barriers. Eliminate inappropriate use of jargon,debunk misinformation often and repeatedly using evidence-based methods, demand data access and transparency from social media companies for scientific research on misinformation, collaborate with social media companies to understand and reduce the spread of harmful misinformation.
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