Mar 23, 2025
DO – Assembly Session
This report provides an overview of the deliverable 8 (D8) on the second assembly session and the onboarding of experts, outlining key discussions, decisions, and next steps.
REPORT ON SECOND ASSEMBLY SESSION
The Democratic Odyssey and its crowdsourced campaign is advocating for a “permanent peoples’ assembly for Europe” by mobilising a wide-ranging and pluralistic group of actors, including academics, practitioners, journalists, institutional representatives and civil society. Inspired by the tentative efforts of past EU legislatures to institutionalise citizen participation, it seeks to go further.
As part of this journey, the Democratic Odyssey launched a pilot transnational assembly, designed to bring together a representative group of citizens in multilingual, transnational deliberations. This assembly is not a single event but a dynamic, evolving process that unfolds across multiple European cities, incorporating both in-person and online formats. Each stage of the journey serves as a stepping stone towards greater citizen involvement, planting the seeds for a more participatory European democracy.
The Online Gathering of November 26th, 2024, was a critical milestone in this process. Following the first in-person assembly in Athens (September 27-29th, 2024), this online session provided an opportunity for assembly members to reconnect, reflect on past discussions, and build momentum toward future deliberations, including the upcoming assemblies in Florence (February 2025) and Vienna (May 2025). The gathering aimed to bridge the in-person meetings, ensure continuity, and further develop the ideas and proposals shaping the assembly’s agenda.
This online space was designed to be inclusive and participatory, offering interpretation in Greek and German. It allowed the 203 assembly members, who were selected through a civic lottery, to remain engaged beyond the physical meetings. By leveraging digital tools such as mentimeter and interactive methods, the gathering facilitated meaningful dialogue, expert insights, and collective sense-making, reinforcing the assembly’s role as an evolving, transnational, citizen-driven platform.
Participants:
The Online Gathering on November 26th, 2024, brought together a total of 203 participants from 26 countries. The majority of attendees were assembly members who had participated in the Athens Assembly in September. Additionally, the gathering included experts and members of our online pool—a group specifically selected to follow and engage with the process virtually. This diverse mix ensured that discussions were both grounded in the experiences of those who had deliberated in person and enriched by fresh perspectives from those engaging remotely.
