On 17 May 2024, Emanuela Pisanó, AER European Project Manager, joined the European Citizens’ Panel on Tackling Hatred in Society, sharing insights from the AMIF-funded EU-Belong project. Afterwards, the European Commission shared the availability to release this exclusive interview, that demonstrate the need for collective action at all levels to build a safe and inclusive Europe.
Do you answer your phone when receiving a call from an unknown number? Well, you should because it might be the European Commission calling.
After making citizen participation in democratic processes and policies a strong pillar of its mandate, the Commission established European Citizens’ Panels as a regular feature of democratic life in the EU. Each Citizens’ Panel brings together 150 randomly selected citizens from all 27 EU Member States, reflecting Europe’s diversity and young generations. The selection process begins with the random generation of phone numbers via computer software, enabling outreach to individuals across the entire EU. Once participants’ availability is confirmed and a sample representative of the EU’s demographic makeup is created, the selected citizens embark on an in-depth journey. Together, they discuss specific policy questions and provide recommendations on critical issues that affect us all.
On 17 May 2024, Emanuela Pisanó, AER European Project Manager, was invited to share with the European Citizens’ Panel on Tackling Hatred in Society the experiences developed in the framework of EU-Belong. The project demonstrates the role that regional authorities can play in tackling hate in society and fostering social cohesion. The application of intercultural integration strategies is paramount in the construction of a welcoming Europe, where people from all walks of life can contribute in the economic and societal growth. Together, the EU-Belong and Citizen’s Panel initiative demonstrate how democratic participation contributes to the construction of a safe and healthy European society.
Leveraging the great opportunity given by the European Commission, the AER team produced a related interview, that not only highlighted the importance of the discussed topic, but also provided great material to inspire more action at national, regional and local levels. Both the Commission and the AER encourage public authorities to discover more about the Citizen Panel and EU-Belong initiatives, and get in touch to participate in the next steps of their implementation.
We thank the European Commission for the availability to release this interview, sharing great insights and inspiring experiences with the Assembly of European Regions’ network and members.
Why is it essential to focus on addressing and mitigating hatred in society?
The European Union has enshrined values such as respect for ‘human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of person belonging to minorities’ in its founding treaties. All forms of hatred and intolerance are incompatible with these fundamental rights and values.
Unfortunately, Europe is currently facing a concerning rise in hate speech and hate crimes, both online and offline. We realise that while we may all think of knowing what hate is, it is not easy to define. Manifestations of hate are multiple, diverse, and complex. The building blocks of hatred can range from biases each of us keeps as an inner feeling, all the way through to the most severe life-threatening manifestations of violence motivated by hate and intolerance. It shows that hatred can range from subtle forms to more explicit ones and can manifest in many forms, from verbal abuse or insults to bullying, harassment, disinformation, threats, or calls for violence, all the way to physical violence or even murder. And hate is not only wounding the direct victims, it affects us all as it silences entire sectors of the population, limiting freedom of expression and reducing the space for public debate and the quality of our democracies.
Recognizing this, the European Commission, in conjunction with the High Representative, has emphasized in a Communication ‘No Place for hate: a Europe united against hatred’ the need for an inclusive dialogue across the EU to address these issues and uphold our shared values of equality, human rights, and dignity, as outlined in the EU Treaty.
To facilitate this dialogue, the European Commission has convened a European Citizens’ Panel that worked on a set of recommendations that will support the European Commission’s future work on tackling hate speech and hate crimes. More concretely, we wanted to hear from citizens – what can we do about hate and how can we enhance mutual respect in our societies?
Can you explain what a Citizens’ Engagement Platform is and describe its significance for policymakers?
To allow more people to participate in these important discussions, the European Commission has launched a Citizens’ Engagement Platform. The Citizens’ Engagement Platform is an online platform where citizens can easily make proposals and present their ideas. It offers them the possibility to contribute to one or more debates on policy topics set and framed by the Commission and comment on other citizens’ contributions in the 24 official EU languages. The ideas from the platform are analysed and presented in a final report, which is shared with the responsible Commission service working on the proposal.
What is more, contributions from the platform serve as an inspiration and can impact the deliberations of the citizens participating in the European Citizens’ Panel.
Since the launch of the platform in February 2024, citizens had a possibility to contribute to a debate on Energy Efficiency. Moreover, they can still share their ideas on the topic of Tackling Hatred in Society. More debates on policy issues that have a direct impact on people’s lives will be launched soon.
We encourage anyone to check the platform and share their ideas as well as spreading the word about this citizen-centered tool.
How do you envision final citizens’ recommendations being utilised across various European regions to drive positive change?
Bringing people from all walks of life to deliberate together while finding consensus can sound as a challenging task. However, at the end of the process, thanks to the carefully designed methodology and inclusive facilitation, they always come up with clear and grounded recommendations.
From 5 April to 19 May, 150 randomly selected citizens from across the EU have been coming together to discuss the various causes and drivers of hatred in the EU and different fields of actions to address them. At the end, they presented 21 recommendations for the European Commission how to tackle hatred in society. These recommendations cover wide range of areas, including the hate crime and hate speech response system, the role of media and politics, digital and technology, education, and citizens’ participation and social inclusion.
The final recommendations from the European Citizens’ Panel on tackling hatred in society, have the potential to inspire positive change at the local, regional, and national levels. While most recommendations may be directed at EU institutions, many can be adopted by local and regional authorities to improve social cohesion and combat hatred in their communities. In fact, all recommendations were presented and discussed during the High Level Group on Combating Hate Speech and Hate Crime meeting on 12-13 June 2024 with participation of national authorities, international organisations, EU agencies, and EU-wide civil society organisations with a positive reception and recognition.
In the meantime, the European Commission services (coordinated by the Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers which leads on the policy) are currently working on the follow up to the recommendations, involving other Commission services and EU institutions with a view to provide feedback to the citizens on how their input was taken up.
Are you a public authority interested in developing initiatives to tackle hatred in society?
- Have a look at Citizens’ Engagement Platform and the European Citizens’ Panels at https://citizens.ec.europa.eu/index_en
- Join the EU debate on hate speech by reading and sharing ideas: https://citizens.ec.europa.eu/participation/processes/tackling-hatred-in-society/f/39/proposals
- Have a look at the 21 citizens’ recommendations for tackling hatred in society: https://citizens.ec.europa.eu/document/download/f924a377-713c-46a4-a92c-a63973b4618e_en?filename=Tackling_Hatred_in_Society_Final_recommendations_EN.pdf
- Get inspired by the work that EU-Belong regional authorities are developing to foster a more cohesive, understanding and multicultural European community: https://eu-belong.aer.eu/
About the project
EU-Belong is a 3-year project co-funded by the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund of the European Union. Coordinated by the Assembly of European Regions (AER) within the framework of its Intercultural Regions Network (IRN), it is implemented in partnership with ten regional authorities from seven European countries: Arad and Timiș in Romania; Catalonia and Navarra in Spain; Donegal in Ireland; Emilia-Romagna in Italy; Leipzig in Germany; Pomerania and Poznan in Poland; Salzburg in Austria; and two technical partners: ART-ER Attrattività Ricerca Territorio and Istituto Economico Cooperazione Internazionale (ICEI).
Stay up to date with all updates by following EU-Belong on X/Twitter @EU_Belong
For questions, please contact Emanuela Pisanó, EU-Belong Project Manager at [email protected]
