As part of the European Commission’s Plan D for Democracy, Dialogue and Debate, Tomorrow’s Europe will attempt to provide answers to citizens’ disenchantment with politics, in particular at the EU level.

The EU does not need another event where people talk about the future of Europe. Conferences, focus groups and debates around Europe are helpful, but will not tell decision-makers anything new. Tomorrow’s Europe will show a different picture by using public opinion research tools in a new and constructive way. It will combine two familiar techniques—sample surveys and small group discussions—into a powerful new technique for gauging informed public opinion. It is an innovative approach to studying public opinion since the development of scientific polling in the 1930’s.

Past Deliberative Polls have recorded significant opinion shifts and provided leaders with in-depth and added-value indications on which policies to undertake.

Tomorrow’s Europe provides the opportunity for the EU and its institutions to:

• Experiment answers to citizens’ disenchantment with policy making, in particular at the EU level A particular challenge over the second semester of 2007, in the context of the relaunch of constitutional intergovernmental discussions and ahead of forthcoming European Parliamentary elections, will be to demonstrate that there is a clear, effective line of communication between EU policy makers and citizens across borders. Tomorrow’s Europe will try to do just this.

• Reveal what citizens would say about the EU if they all had time to meet, deliberate, and gain balanced information For the first time ever, Tomorrow’s Europe will bring together a scientifically representative microcosm of citizens from all of Europe over a weekend. They will discuss their future together. Because it will be truly representative, citizens in all member states will be able to identify with the participants. They will in a sense all be in that room. Tomorrow’s Europe will focus on issues at the heart of people’s hopes and worries for their common future and ask themselves: “What should –or should not- be done jointly at the European level?”

• Demonstrate that EU citizens can tackle complex EU matters if quality deliberation methodologies are provided The tested methodology ensures that citizens’ views are not influenced, by providing an impartial infrastructure to share thoughtful and considered opinions.

The architecture of a deliberative process and its careful construction are indeed decisive factors in its usefulness. Deliberative Polling is noted for its capacity to create conditions that favour quality deliberation:

1. In the majority of debates, a phenomenon of “group polarisation” occurs. This is where “the pre-existing opinion trend within a deliberative group is reinforced following discussion” (See C. R. Sunstein, “The Law of Group Polarization”, in The Journal of Political Philosophy, vol. 10, no. 2, 2002, pp. 175-195) Deliberative Polling escapes this undesirable effect. Deliberators benefit from a “levelling up” of information before the debates. They continue to be informed during the course of the debate, and are given access to arguments and contexts for each represented viewpoint. They hear the opinions of experts. They deliberate in small groups and in plenary, always benefiting from impartial moderators. They take part in confrontations between the advocates of various opposing standpoints.

2. Deliberative Polling does not content itself with a single snapshot record of participants’ opinions. Instead, it repeats polling at selected moments.

3. The remarkable quality of Deliberative Polling lies in its civic and pedagogical objectives. Deliberative polls held to date indicate positive impacts in terms of stimulating and developing democratic participation: “the responses of participants reflect an increased interest in politics, an awareness of their ignorance and a need for information (…). They also indicate a more critical perception of politicians and an increased determination to be heard”.

• Provide information and lessons for future transnational citizen consultations While other deliberative techniques, such as consensus conferences and citizens’ juries, are very useful, they involve only a small number of people. The intensity of media attention is reduced because of the length of the process. Producing quality recommendations on complex and unfamiliar issues requires Deliberative Polling’s complex and rigorous process of information and deliberation. Other Plan D initiatives use a mixture of debating approaches, but without the same level of commitment to scientific rigor. The priority, the organisers of Tomorrow’s Europe believe, is to give citizens a voice and to explore the true diversity of their opinions, in order to provide EU and national decision-makers with a clear and rich view of options and perspectives, not a replication of policy positions already explored through Eurobarometer polls or national focus groups Deliberative Polling is a highly reputed methodology. For political philosopher Bernard Manin, “its objective was first and foremost to improve polling techniques (… and…) to strike a balance between the expression of ordinary citizens, one of democracy’s central values since its creation, and the merits of collective deliberation, typically limited in the confines of the chosen gatherings”. (Bernard Manin, “Deliberation and Discussion”, Revue Suisse de Science Politique, date unknown, pp. 5-7)

18 April 2007