Make.org is delighted to join this conversation and the common effort of civil society and Members of the European Parliament to safeguard funding for democracy in Europe. It is crucial to co-create common initiatives regarding meaningful citizen participation in light of the next EU budget, European Citizens’ Initiatives, but also the overall resilience of our democracies against foreign interference and information manipulation campaigns, through for example the Democratic Shield initiative.

In her introduction, MEP Raquel García Hermida-van der Walle (Renew) reminded the audience that civil society organisations are one of the cornerstones of democracy. That is also why the MEPs, including René Repasi (S&D) and Brando Benifei (S&D), supported sustaining the role of CSOs with regard to the next EU budget and its disbursement also for the upcoming programming period. 

All speakers agreed that it is crucial for European institutions to be transparent, so they can position themselves as a credible and respected actor. They equally highlighted the importance of investing into democracy, through active engagement of citizens who are directly impacted also by the EU funding. Examples of engagement such as Conference for Future of Europe, European Citizens’ Initiative and the European Citizens’ Panels were pointed out. The European institutions must all jointly deliver on the propositions made by citizens. Crucially, the questions of size of the EU budget, investment in research and local policies were also debated.

As Make, we are providing the analysis of the Citizen Engagement Platform. At the same time, we have been constantly contributing to the discussions on how the technologies, especially digital and AI tools shape, impact and support our democracy. 

Another example of our footprint on Eu level is the participatory initiative EurHope.  together with JEF Europe, we carried out this project that presented young Europeans’ views on how to face collective challenges and uphold European values.The “Agenda for Hope” tabled concrete actions to fulfill these ambitions. Besides, we also launched an interactive and accessible platform, WahlCheck 2025, which empowers all citizens to get objective and transparent information about the 2025 German federal elections. 

We are delighted to contribute to the dialogue with the Members of European Parliament, notably on questions around combining online and offline deliberative panels to improve EU citizens engagement.

We are glad to be part of such an important panel, and we are looking forward to following up with our partners on forging the relationship between civil society and Members of the European Parliament who want to be involved in discussions on the future of democracy.

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