The European Committee of the Regions has established a High Level Group on Democracy to accompany its work in the Conference on the Future of Europe. It will be chaired by former President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy and bring together politicians with a high level experience of the EU. Representing Renew Europe on the group will be former European Commissioner for Health and later for Culture, Education and Youth, Androulla Vassiliou of Cyprus who looks forward to the bottom-up approach of the Conference on the Future of Europe.
Former European Commissioner Androula Vassiliou:
Having participated in the Convention on the Future of Europe in 2001-2002, I am looking forward to this Conference because of its bottom-up approach. Citizens expect the EU to meet their expectations which requires understanding well what those expectations are, and local and regional representatives are ideally placed to convey the views and interests of the citizens because of their proximity to them. I am therefore delighted to be part of the CoR’s High Level Group.
Members of the Group have also already expressed interest in developing interactions with young local and regional politicians, for which the Young Elected Politicians (YEP) programme will be an ideal platform.
The formal and political launch of the High Level Group will take place during the CoR’s May plenary session (5-7 May), together with a political debate on the CoR’s perspective for the Future of Europe and it’s participation in the forthcoming Conference on the Future of Europe.
Full composition:
Herman Van ROMPUY (Chair) – Former Prime Minister of Belgium, President of the National Parliament and President of the European Council
Joaquín ALMUNIA – Former European Commissioner
Tomasz Grzegorz GROSSE – Professor, University of Warsaw
Rebecca HARMS – Former Member of the European Parliament (MEP)
Silja MARKKULA – President, European Youth Forum
Maria João RODRIGUES – Former Minister and MEP
Androulla VASSILIOU – Former European Commissioner
