The CNEL, within its constitutional prerogatives, has prepared a public consultation on the future of Europe addressed to all citizens, with particular reference to young people and members of all the social and productive organizations of the country represented in the Council. The young people will be involved in completing the questionnaire with the help of the Ministry of Education, University and Research.
The consultation, foreseen by the art. 10 of the Regulations of the CNEL bodies, approved by the Assembly at the 12 July 2018 meeting, was prepared as part of a project promoted by the EESC, the European Economic and Social Committee, at the request of the European Commission, to gather the opinion and expectations on the future of the European Union of all European citizens.
The activity of listening to citizens, implemented through an online questionnaire, follows the survey methodology developed in the past few years at the National Administration School (SNA) with the aim of assessing the quality and image of public institutions and subsequently used also in other surveys to the CNEL, such as, for example, from the 2014 with the "Annual Report to Parliament and the Government on the levels and quality of services offered by central and local public administrations to businesses and citizens".
Four areas on which citizens are called to express themselves: fundamental principles of the European Union; economic policies; social policies and digitization.
Each area of reference, through 17 simple multiple choice questions, is refined into second level conceptual groupings including the single market, monetary union, foreign policy and defense, tax, labor, health, education and training, immigration, youth policies, sustainable development, privacy and copyright, digital identity and the cross-border administrative system. The interviewee can answer each question with a VOTE that varies from 1 to 10.
The consultation will end the 21 March. The results will be announced in a public event and transmitted to the EESC.
"This work is part of a more general initiative of European countries, with a view to the common strategy of strengthening the active involvement of citizens", states Tiziano Treu, president of CNEL, who "wanted to join and promote this initiative, just a few months from European elections, in the renewed will that the Council represents a place of participation and involvement of citizens and intermediate bodies. The consultation represents the start of a new path of initiatives that will take place in the coming months also on other issues with the aim of innovating the forms of democratic participation ".