Random groups of citizens were key drivers of the process at the just-concluded Conference on the Future of Europe. By gathering 800 citizens from all member nations to make recommendations about the EU’s constitutional future, these European Citizens’ Panels were an important achievement in deliberative democracy, a process by which groups of stakeholders chosen from a population at random gather for mediated deliberation and decision making about policy and governance.

Berggruen Fellow Carsten Berg has been a leader of the movement for deliberative democracy for decades, co-designing the world’s first permanent randomly selected citizens’ assembly in East Belgium and directing the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) Campaign. In this report he discusses his observations from the European Citizens’ Panels, the lessons to be learned, and the outlook for deliberative democracy in Europe in a time of deepening geopolitical uncertainty.