The Democratic Odyssey is a crowdsourced, decentralized and collaborative campaign developing a concept and strategy to institutionalise a permanent peoples’ assembly and participatory eco-system in the European Union.
By building on lessons learned from the Conference on the Future of Europe (COFE) and other assembly initiatives, a transnational peoples’ assembly as a prototype for an EU-wide European Peoples’ Assembly is being organised, showcasing how citizen participation can be enacted in all stages of the EU’s policy processes, from agenda setting and legislative initiative to co-legislation and even constitutional Treaty Change.
European Peoples’ Assembly
On the 27th of September 2024, history was made when two hundred randomly selected Europeans gathered in Athens for the first session of the European Peoples’ Assembly. But what makes this permanent European Peoples’ Assembly so special?
The Democratic Odyssey aspires to establish a permanent, transnational People’s Assembly for Europe, emulating the ancient Greek citizen assemblies and leveraging modern participatory practices and communications technologies, so that it links grassroots democratic innovation with institutionalised citizens’ engagement to support the policy developments reflecting citizens real needs.
The pilot Assembly’s first meeting in Athens brought together 200 people from 22 countries, to deliberate on how citizens can improve the EU’s preparedness for future crises. The entire event is described, together with the outcomes on this webpage (opens a new tab): The Travelling Assembly
The depth of discussions during the three days in Athens, and subsequently elsewhere, has proved to be both wide-ranging thematically, and based on the experiences of the difference crises that the many participants have experienced. This is documented in the reports and descriptions described on the Travelling Assembly web-page, which we encourage you to consult using the link above.
Background to the Democratic Odyssey
It was conceived and launched as a long-term journey to bring together as many contributors as possible in different capacities and with different roles in the form of a Constituent Network which is open source for all interested organisations to contribute through frequent webinar attendance and discussion. OurStar.org.uk participates and contributes via that Network.
The vision is to demonstrate how to combine the design of transnational citizens’ assemblies with pre-existing instruments of citizen participation (such as European Citizens’ Initiatives) and how to embed citizen participation and deliberation in representative democracy within the EU.
The Power to the People group is a cooperation between European Alternatives, European University Institute, Europe Calling, Mehr Demokratie, Another Europe is Possible, Citizens Takeover Europe, ECI Campaign and The Democratic Odyssey.
More information can be found on the Democratic Odyssey web-site .
Draft Citizens’ Charter – May 2025
After a series of Assemblies and online discussions that are more fully described on th website linked above, the draft Citizens’ Charter has been produced for public comment, which can be added by any member of the public, for discussion at the Fourth Assembly in Vienna on then 25-28th May 2025. Subsequently it will be submitted to the European Institutions (Commission and Parliament) for their consideration and action.
Steering through Storms:
A submission to the European Public, Politicians and Institutions
from the Assembly Members of the Democratic Odyssey
Draft for public review: 4 May 2025
Preamble
Our world is undergoing rapid transformation: changes in technology, climate, international relations, society and culture mean that everybody is faced with challenges. Recent years have seen a multiplication of crises across Europe, whether in localised floods, fires or buildings collapsing, or structural crises such as inequality, discrimination and influx of migrants, or massive acute crises like the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change or war. As we navigate change and uncertainty, more crises are likely: how we prepare for them, avoid them where possible and address them where necessary and learn from them is what is going to make the difference.
The Democratic Odyssey starts from the conviction that people need to be involved in this process: it concerns all of us, and it is everyone’s responsibility!
Through a randomly selected people’s assembly, meeting in different configurations in Athens, Florence, Vienna and online, 400 people living all over Europe, from every walk of life and background, have come together over 9 months to innovate a new model for democracy in Europe. Taking inspiration from historical experiences of assembly and pluralism in these cities and more, we 400 people have generated ideas for how democracy can be made fit for purpose in the 21st century.
What better way to ask this question than to explore what happens in times of crisis? How can citizens learn from their own experiences of crisis to help the EU better steer its way through future storms? What needs to change in Europe to democratise future thinking?
We believe democracy needs to be renewed, expanded and embedded if it is to be our guiding principle in navigating change in Europe and beyond. It needs to be renewed beyond elections to involve more regular participation, to be expanded to ensure that everyone concerned is included, and to be embedded in every aspect of our lives, from the family to the school, workplace and public services, as well as every level of government. If this were to happen, ordinary people would engineer their own democratic resilience before, during and after crisis, and learn in the process to rely together on democratic foresight.
Such democratic renewal requires not only institutional reform but also a cultural shift—an ethical transformation anchored in solidarity, mutual respect, and deep listening, whilst not ignoring the political cleavages, conflicting interests and outlooks which are the core of democratic politics.
We affirm the role of civic arts and storytelling in facilitating profound dialogue, allowing expression of difference, cultivating empathy, and strengthening the social bonds necessary for participatory governance. Artistic and embodied practices offer vital tools to surface lived experience, heal collective wounds, and imagine futures grounded in dignity and interconnection.
In an age marked by ecological crisis and digital transformation, this Charter calls for democratic practices that also represent non-human beings, future generations, and planetary systems. It invites us to reimagine democratic participation as a multi-species, multi-temporal dialogue, grounded in care for the commons and ecological reciprocity.
Our Charter lays out ten paths to navigate towards this horizon. It calls for interconnected assemblies of people across the territory of Europe, acknowledging that crises can affect different places in different ways but that our collective response must be coordinated. Ultimately it calls for a permanent people’s assembly for Europe to catalyse, give voice to and sustain this participatory democratic infrastructure across the continent.
Ten Paths towards democratic crisis readiness
Each path is encapsulated in a motto drawn from citizen quotations during our Assembly meetings. This is followed by a statement of the principle or goal which will be discussed and developed at the Final Assembly of this Prototype phase on the 23rd-25th May 2025.
1. “It is our responsibility too: everyone should be involved”
Participation should not be limited to elections or occasional consultations: our society and our future are our responsibility every day, we all have our experience and expertise to share. We should invest in civic infrastructure and we should activate civic engagement at every opportunity and every level, occasionally resorting to direct democracy too.
2. “No Taxation Without Participation”
Spending of public money should be done with the participation of the people, to ensure everyone is taken into account and limit the influence of special interests, to mobilise collective intelligence and learning, and to build trust. Participatory budgeting has been tested in many places, now it should become mainstream across Europe at all levels including EU spending.
3. “Nothing About Us Without Us”
Crisis can never be an excuse for grabbing power or silencing opposition. Even in the midst of crisis, there must always be ways for people to participate, assemble, protest, imagine innovative ways to engage and make themselves heard freely: only in these ways can problems be highlighted, bad policies be corrected and good policies adopted.
4. “Empower and Educate to Anticipate”
Being ready for crisis must mean being empowered in advance, being prepared during and being involved in collective learning afterwards. Civic education for all ages, democratising foresight and anticipation to mobilise our collective intelligence, and evaluation are all crucial parts of navigating change democratically.
5. ‘Our superpowers are community and connection’
In crisis people come together. Empower and reinforce autonomous communities, from energy communities to feminist and intergenerational housing collectives, from farmer-consumer cooperatives to virtual communities. Ensure these communities are autonomous yet democratic, accessible, connected and coordinated between themselves.
6. ‘People move, democracy follows’
The mobility of people is a right and a reality. Democracy should accommodate the participation of people no matter where they come from, on condition of their commitment to democratic values, with local communities committed, coordinated and prepared for welcoming people coming from elsewhere.
7. ‘No matter how complex, transparency is a right’
If it affects us, we deserve to understand it. Transparency is a prerequisite for participation, trust and accountability, and therefore of democracy. People themselves should be able to decide how much complexity and detail they want: the science, data and arguments behind decisions must be publicly available.
8. “Care is the heart of democracy’
Popular democracy starts with caring for and about each other. Too often in crisis public authorities and bureaucracies have seemed not to care about people: care culture, awareness of emotions, mental health and bodily experience must be at the heart of a resilient and healthy democracy.
9. “Harness Technology, unleash collective intelligence”
Technology can be anti-social and manipulative if it is controlled exclusively by private interests, corporations or hostile powers, but if it is democratised it can be a powerful tool for our collective intelligence and contribute to countering extremism.
10. “Not everything has been invented yet”
Last but not least, the EU and public authorities at every level should team up with civil society and social movement to create a permanent people’s assembly for Europe that would be itinerant, locally embedded, to be regularly convened and revised by citizens themselves, and to serve as a bridge between EU institutions and the broader public.
Ultimately, this Citizen Charter lays the foundation for a
Permanent People’s Assembly for Europe.