Between October 2006 and May 2007, more than 1,800 citizens in 27 countries were consulted in 23 languages, selected at random by professional recruitment agencies or universities according to a set of criteria designed to ensure that the participants were representative of the EU population.
In European- and national-level debates the citizens chose and discussed three topics they considered most important to their lives, identified common ground and made recommendations to policy-makers responsible for decisions on Europe's future.
They were supported by Compagnia di San Paolo, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Robert Bosch Stiftung and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
In a final step, on 9 and 10 May 2007, 27 citizen representatives took part in a European-level synthesis exercise focusing on the common ground and the areas of divergence between the national findings.
Follow-up activities at the national level included 39 local debates in Belgium,[1] 15 local citizen forums in Germany,[2] debating cafés in Slovenia, a school competition in Ireland, and press conferences with EU Commissioners in Slovakia and the Czech Republic.