"The future is Europe" - Vice-President Roberta Metsola

“The future of Europe is the future of Europeans. Citizens should be placed at the heart of our Europe,” declared First Vice President Roberta Metsola, as she opened a meeting with Members of Parliament coming from all corners of the European continent and belonging to the EPP political family.

Today and tomorrow, the Parliamentary Committees for EU Affairs of National Parliaments of the European Union are holding their bi-annual meeting, in video-conference format. The programme includes a discussion on the Conference on the Future of Europe.

Towards the end of 2019, the EU institutions announced the Conference on the Future of Europe, which is going to last two years. The primary aim of the Conference is to look at reforms that would make the EU work better for EU citizens.

“This is the essence of the EPP philosophy: As the EPP, we have always pushed for greater citizen participation and engagement, greater accountability for decisions, with a livelier parliamentary democracy at the national level and a stronger European Parliament at its core,” explained First Vice-President Roberta Metsola, who is leading the European Parliament delegation in today’s and tomorrow’s meeting with National Parliaments.

Due to the pandemic, the launch of Conference of the Future of Europe took much longer than planned. It was only on 19 April 2021, that the multilingual digital platform of the Conference went online.

“This is why the Conference on the Future of Europe should be approached with an open and positive attitude and focus on bringing the EU closer to the citizens. It must be an ambitious, transparent and open process for all despite the rocky and delayed start in the midst of a pandemic. I’d like to thank our Chairman Manfred Weber for his political leadership amidst all this,” concluded Metsola.