Pillars

For the Permanent Citizen Dialogue, three precepts have been determined: firstly, the stability of the Citizen Dialogue; secondly, the representativity of the Citizen Assemblies; and thirdly, the quality of the debate.

Stability of the Dialogue: Citizens are regularly called to meetings to discuss certain topics and make policy recommendations. A Citizen Council organises these meetings and oversees the implementation.

Representativity of the Assembly: The citizens taking part in the dialogue are randomly selected. This will allow the involvement of citizens, who would otherwise probably never have got a chance to speak. During the selection, certain criteria – such as age, sex, geographical origin and socio-economic background – will be considered, so that the selected citizens represent a good cross section of the population. Additionally, there will be a continuous change regarding the citizens taking part in the dialogue.

Quality of the debate: Citizens must be well prepared, informed and supervised, in order to be able to formulate their policy recommendations with full knowledge of the facts. Assemblies are led by a professional facilitator.