Jurzyca: CoFoE Can't Replace Voters' Decision-Making in Elections
Bratislava, December 15 (TASR) – Slovak MEP Eugen Jurzyca (Freedom and Solidarity/SaS) expects the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) to bring “inspirational ideas”, but its conclusions can’t replace the decisions made by voters in elections.
The MEP in an interview for TASR praised the fact that the CoFoE is an opportunity for everyone who cares about Europe to express their opinions. The former education minister thinks that one of the priorities for the Union should be to become more transparent – “at least as transparent as Slovakia, where agreements with the state are published”.
Jurzyca would also like the functioning of the EU to be more comprehensible. “For example, documents discussed by the European Parliament are often less comprehensible to the public than those discussed by the Slovak Parliament,” he said.
The Union should also make more use of its diversity, thinks the MEP. “For example, if we can see that Estonia is successful in investing more on the stock market, let’s do an analysis and be inspired by the most successful ones. We aren’t quite doing this in the EU at the moment, although this is a huge chance,” he said.
“The Conference has the biggest chance of improving the European Union in making more use of the experience of member states so that people can benefit from every euro as much as possible,” stated Jurzyca.
Concerning the Conference itself and its course, Jurzyca sees room for improvement in its transparency. “For example, debates at the Conference could be broadcast live to the whole public,” he stated. Some plenaries of citizens’ panels are streamed at the moment, but not the discussions of the individual groups within them.
“I believe that the EU will manage to move forward; for example, in evaluating the success of projects based on results instead of outputs and in applying best practices,” said Jurzyca when asked whether CoFoE outputs can be translated into changes in the functioning of EU institutions.
The CoFoE has been organised by the European Parliament, the Council of the EU and the European Commission. It enables EU citizens to express their opinions on the Union’s future direction.
