Uhrik: CoFoE Has Potential, But Organisers Disrespect Plurality of Opinions

Bratislava, March 8 (TASR) – The Conference on the Future of Europe has great potential, but its organisers disrespect the plurality of opinions and have not engaged in discussions with those “who have different views on the matter,” Slovak MEP Milan Uhrik (the far-right Republic party) has told TASR.

The CoFoE consists of four citizens’ panels made up of 800 representatives of EU citizens. Participants in the panels have been randomly selected from among all EU citizens. However, anyone can express their views on the EU’s functioning through the multilingual digital platform futureu.europa.eu.

According to Uhrik, the panels’ recommendations so far “mostly copy the official line pursued by EU commissioners.” Among the recommendations that the MEP disagrees with are “the facilitation of migration to Europe”, the so-called green policy, the setting up of a European Health Union, and the “centralisation of decision-making on agriculture”. Conversely, he welcomes proposals concerning standards regarding the quality of goods imported into Europe from third countries.

The aforementioned citizens panels will submit their recommendations to the European Parliament at its plenary sessions. These will be included in the final report to be prepared by the CoFoE Executive Board in the spring.