Alliance for a Responsible, Plural and United World
_________________________________________________

European Continental Assembly 

At the initiative of the Alliance supported by the 
Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation (FPH)

Romania,  17 - 21 June 2001

European Continental Assembly

********************

Two hundred people from every country in Europe will meet for five days to finalise a process comprising a year of debate.
The aim is to create an arena in which citizens can put forward their proposals for change in order to make Europe the place in which they want to live.
Bring participation by citizens to the fore, make a concrete contribution to solving some of the key issues facing Europe, make the European identity a reality and build democratic governance together on the scale of the continent: these are the issues dealt with by this process to which all those who wish to make progress through change for a more responsible, plural and united Europe are invited.

*****************

1.	The objective of the Assembly

The main aim of this project is to formulate concrete proposals that have been put forward for collective debate between Europeans and which can be organised according to different scales from local to global.
These proposals can be presented as a contribution to the emergence of a European civil society capable of influencing, with credibility and legitimacy, the substance and construction of European democratic governance.

Governance means all the political, administrative, legal and social regulations that a society formulates to manage its problems and orient its destiny.

Thus we invite you to participate in a genuine process of working in both the short and long terms. 

2.	The Assembly's framework 

This project is part of a larger programme of continental meetings organised by the Alliance for a Responsible, Plural and United World to be held simultaneously in Africa, Asia, North America and South America around 21 June 2001. Their aim is to gather proposals for change which will be used as the basis for a world assembly to be held at Lille, France, in December 2001. 

Within the European Union, the project gives the opportunity to citizens to debate on the Europe they hope to build and, by making proposals, fuel debates in which they can participate and during other events where they can express their opinions, such as the European elections of 2004. 

The Alliance for a Responsible, Plural and United World is an informal grouping of people who wish to act collectively, by contributing to the changes required to solve the challenges of the 21st century. They work together on every geographical level by forming thematic and collegial groups dealing with the key areas for the future of the planet. 

3.	The political and social context

The European Union is entering a new phase of its construction: the enlargement of its Community to embrace Central and Eastern European countries, the drawing up of a charter of basic rights, the reform of its institutions. However, Europeans are hardly ever asked to express themselves about these major issues and even less often associated with how these changes are to take place. The truth is that they live in an entity fashioned without their participation. 

Nonetheless, it is obvious that the traditional players on the political and economic stage, prisoners of their own rationales, are powerless to act if they remain alone in deciding the fate of a Europe different to that desired by its citizens. The continuing construction of Europe can only be achieved through co-operation with the members of civil society, who have proved they are capable of constituting a force for initiative and proposal regarding the changes to be undertaken and the perspectives to be set out.

However, European citizens usually and almost exclusively use their capacity to express themselves on a national basis. There is no sign that a European civil society exists, in spite of the declaration of European citizenship by the Maastricht Treaty in 1992.

The truth is that the solutions to the problems common to every European country lie beyond the capacity of Nation-States. Persuaded that they still conserve a considerable margin of manoeuvre, they must abide by inter-governmental negotiations and find themselves remarkably isolated and powerless to deal with the major problems caused by globalisation. 

Thus, the idea of a European Constituent has emerged progressively as a response to these new challenges and the continental Assembly intends to make a significant contribution in this direction. 

4.	The organisation of the Assembly 

4. 1.  Dates and place

The Assembly will take place from 17 to 21 June 2001 in Romania at Peles Castle in the Carpathian mountains. 

4-2.  The participants

Although there is no pretence at exhaustive representation, the Assembly will gather about 200 people from, if possible, every country of the European continent (and not only from the Union) as well as from certain Mediterranean countries especially concerned by European construction. 

The participants will be invited by the national co-ordinators who are responsible for ensuring balance in terms of age, sex and socio-professional categories. The main underlying idea of this choice is the desire to break down the barriers separating different milieus that mostly obey their own rationales and respective reference frameworks. 

The Assembly will not be an internal meeting of the Alliance. This is why we will take care to open out the debate and the Assembly itself to the largest number possible of persons, institutions and European citizens movements. 

4. 3.  The subjects

The subjects proposed for debate during the Assembly have been chosen according to the major challenges common to Europe. They are:

1)	Democratic governance for Europe
2)	Work and social organisation
3)	The European rural world and sustainability
4)	Migrations and multicultural citizenship

Reference texts will be proposed by the thematic co-ordinators to launch the debates.

4. 4.  Methodology

The working languages throughout the process will be English and French.

An electronic debate forum will be set up from November 2000 to April 2001 to continue the debates already begun on the four subjects chosen. It will be used to make an appeal for contributions from the largest number of persons possible (individuals and organisations). The participants will subscribe to the subject corresponding to their interests.
The elements of proposals produced by the forum will be used to fuel the debates of the Assembly and constitute the basis of proceedings. 

During the Assembly itself, the 200 participants will be divided into 4 groups of 50 people, each working on one of the subjects.
An experimental method of democratic participation based on the "planning cell" concept will be used. 
Rather than encouraging participants to criticise "what is wrong in their country", the method orients them towards making consensual proposals for change at European level, while taking into account their local and daily environment. The planning cell methodology will permit the participants to debate with experts by expressing their points of view without seeking to narrow down the exchanges or blur contrasting viewpoints.

4. 5.  The four days of the Assembly 

The 4 thematic groups will work independently during the first days and then combine their works on the last day of the Assembly (21 June).

An Internet link with the other Alliance continental meetings will be set up to permit the exchange of images and texts. 

4. 6. The expected results 

The contributions from the electronic forum and the Assembly will permit the formulation of proposals deemed to be pertinent, viable and realistic by all the participants to implement the changes required to build a European governance.

They will be collected in a “dossier of proposals” intended for publication in open ended form and be widely diffused in several languages. Its uses will be many. The dossier of proposals will be designed so that it can be used by all on different levels. It can just as well be used a single person desiring to "change things" in his or her own environment as by the decision-makers of structured organisations. 

4. 7. Media exposure

The media exposure given to the Assembly will result from the efforts of each and all. The organisation team in Romania has already received a guarantee of interest in this European meeting by the authorities and the national media.
The participants are invited to stir interest in this initiative by all the different media in their respective countries.
Contacts have already been made with alternative press agencies and the international networks of free radios.

2 October 2000

For the organisation team

Manola Gardez Rauss and Betty Nguyen	
Foundation for the Progress of Humankind
38, rue Saint-Sabin
75011 Paris – France
	Phone: 33 (0)1 43 14 75 75
Fax: 33 (0)1 43 14 75 99
E-mail: manola@fph.fr and betty@echo.org