The Travelling Assembly
Towards a permanent Peoples' Assembly for Europe
[Please note this latest version was made public on 25 May 2025, after the final meeting (External link) of the 2024/25 pilot Assembly]
A Citizens' Charter to Revitalise Democracy in Europe by Navigating Future Crises Together
Our world is changing dramatically! We see profound transformations in our planetary climate, our geopolitics, financial systems, as well as our societies, technologies, cultures.
It is not hard to imagine more future crises, from natural disasters to pandemics, to the crises that will define our collective destiny, climate meltdown, the dismantling of the welfare state, rampant corruption, the disruption of social ties, booming precarity, discrimination and inequality. Europeans are confronting the spectre of war.
The Assembly members of the Democratic Odyssey believe that Europeans have learned a lot through crises, but that we can do better. We call European publics, politicians, civil servants and institutions to take a leap of faith with us.
We must, we can, better navigate through these turbulent times. We must do so democratically. Together, authorities and citizens must envision the crises of the future, avoid them where possible and address them where necessary. The key: prepare, prepare, prepare. Together we must learn from them, learn from our mistakes and success. Use our collective intelligence to consider what is to be done now to tackle future crises.
Let’s always ask not only who already has the power but who should have it. Meaningful action is also in the hands of societies. Whether they act in times of emergency or in normal times, it is in the interest of elected officials to tap into peoples’ real-life experiences, often the best expertise around. But smart action and decisions depend on widely accessible democratic competence.
The Democratic Odyssey, a randomly selected people’s assembly of 300 people from across Europe and from every walk of life and background, have come together for a year to design changes to our democratic landscape that stem from the conviction that citizens need to be involved in the making of the decisions that impact their lives. In our understanding, everyone living in Europe is a citizen and has political agency and responsibility for our collective future. Travelling from Athens to Florence and Vienna, we engaged in deliberation, story-telling, immersive theater or future envisioning, to generate ideas on what needs to change in Europe to democratise our futures.
Can the democratic ideal be reborn? We invite all citizens to reimagine democratic participation beyond elections as translocal, multi-generational, grounded in care for common goods and in symbiosis with non-human life, embedded in every aspect of our lives, from the family to the school, workplace and public services, as well as every level of government. If this were to happen, people would engineer their own democratic resilience before, during and after a crisis, and learn in the process to rely together on democratic foresight.
Our Charter lays out ten pathways to navigate towards this horizon. It acknowledges that crises can affect everyone, anywhere but in different ways. Nevertheless, broad principles can be shared to create a more participatory democratic world across our continent and beyond.
The "Ten Democratic Pathways towards Crisis Resilience"
1. 'Being involved is also our responsibility as citizens!'
2. “Our Money, our Choice!”
3. 'Nothing About Us Without Us'
4. 'Educate to Anticipate'
5. 'Collectivity and self-organization are our power'
6. ‘If People relocate, democracy must follow’
7. ‘Transparency is non-negotiable’
8. 'Care is at the heart of democracy’
9. 'Harness Technology, unleash collective intelligence'
10. 'Not everything has been invented yet'
All Pathways are structured as follows:
- Principle - the guiding vision for this pathway
- Change? The question of what needs to be kept, eliminated, or imagined anew (Athens output)
- Tensions? The difficult conversations or tradeoffs and dissenting opinions raised by this principle (Florence output)
- Steps? How do we get there? What are plausible scenarios? dream scenarios? Opportunities to grab on the way? what we must guard again? (Vienna output)
[Please note this latest version was made public on 25 May 2025, after the final meeting (External link) of the 2024/25 pilot Assembly]
Principle: Whether in acute or permanent crises, people increasingly come together to take their destiny in their hands. Autonomous communities are precious and need to be empowered, from energy communities to feminist and intergenerational housing collectives, from farmer-consumer cooperatives to virtual communities and social enterprises. But we must encourage these communities to be not only autonomous but also democratic, accessible, connected and coordinated between thems...
Read more
[Please note this latest version was made public on 25 May 2025, after the final meeting (External link) of the 2024/25 pilot Assembly]
Change? (Athens spirit)
Some assembly members have experienced such communities and believe they now need to receive more EU and national support rather than simply local support.
[Please note this latest version was made public on 25 May 2025, after the final meeting (External link) of the 2024/25 pilot Assembly]
Tensions? (Florence spirit)
Members disagreed on whether communities have a vocation to provide public services, and on how autonomous these communities or cooperatives should be. Should local, national or European authorities take part in their deliberation, or not at all? Or should they do so only when invited? How much should governments help? Who ensures that their decision-making is fair? Should assembly principles and rules be drawn in advance by our network? What is the...
Read more
[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)
Encouraging in-person meetings and assemblies empowering and connecting people and communities on different levels: local, national, and international, ensuring two way interactions between the different levels. Local councils can share knowledge within the community, encourage storytelling for individuals and groups to share their experiences and perspectives.
Advocacy groups which train community members to advocate for their rights and interests, includ...
Read more