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Strengthening Inclusive Democratic Participation and Civic Engagement within the European Union - Presidency events

12 November 2026

Contents updated at 11:44

Overall conference on strengthening inclusive democratic participation and civic engagement within the European Union.

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Conference — Strengthening Inclusive Democratic Participation and Civic Engagement within the EU

02:58

Opening performance

02:58

Intervenant 1 — Introduction to the song "Grace"

02:58

Intervenant inconnu — Announcement of the song title

03:16

Opening statements

17:07

Intervenant 2 — Welcome and framing of the conference

17:07

Dominik Hierlemann — Housekeeping and introduction of Preben Aamann

19:14

Preben Aamann — Opening welcome on behalf of the Council

20:43

Dominik Hierlemann — Introduction of Irish Presidency welcome

23:51

Marian Harkin — Welcome on behalf of the Irish Presidency

24:42

Dominik Hierlemann — Transition to keynote by Commissioner McGrath

33:27

Keynote — Michael McGrath — Democratic resilience, technology and citizen participation

34:34

Michael McGrath — Keynote on European Democracy Shield, technology and citizen participation

34:34

Q&A with Commissioner Michael McGrath

55:40

Question of Dominik Hierlemann on democracy roadshow lessons and Brussels’ role

55:40

Question of Dominik Hierlemann on making EU citizen participation meaningful

59:28

Question of Dominik Hierlemann on re‑engaging disillusioned citizens

01:02:11

Panel 1 — Making EU democratic institutions more inclusive and resilient: responses to current challenges

01:05:02

Dominik Hierlemann — Introduction of Panel 1 and presentation of panellists

01:05:02

Key challenges facing democracy today

01:07:54

Dominik Hierlemann — Slido poll and question on biggest challenges to democracy

01:07:54

Ignacy Niemczycki — Low public trust, media and agency as core challenges

01:09:07

Alexandra Geese — Power of tech billionaires over the information ecosystem

01:10:06

Marie-Helene Boulanger — Geopolitics, technology and foreign threats to democracy

01:10:54

Steffen der Ron — Institutions’ inability to regain citizens’ trust

01:11:35

Jane Suiter — Importance of institutional response and inclusion for resilience

01:12:27

Policy responses to rebuild democratic trust and participation

01:12:58

Dominik Hierlemann — Slido results and question on restoring trust and the Polish example

01:12:58

Ignacy Niemczycki — Enabling environment, civil society support and media regulation

01:14:20

Question of Dominik Hierlemann to Ignacy Niemczycki on simplifying civil society funding procedures

01:17:07

Alexandra Geese — Using the DSA and Kids Act to return content choice to citizens

01:18:15

Question of Dominik Hierlemann to Marie-Helene Boulanger on the European Democracy Shield and citizen participation

01:23:00

Slido poll and question of Dominik Hierlemann to Steffen der Ron on bottlenecks to engagement

01:25:04

Question of Dominik Hierlemann to Jane Suiter on whether EU instruments are sufficient

01:30:28

Follow-up of Dominik Hierlemann to Jane Suiter on engaging marginalised groups

01:33:51

Question of Dominik Hierlemann to Ignacy Niemczycki on reforms versus better execution

01:35:21

Question of Dominik Hierlemann to Steffen der Ron on listening and reforms at EU level

01:36:54

Question of Dominik Hierlemann to Marie-Helene Boulanger on quicker reactions and accessibility of participatory processes

01:38:15

Exchange between Dominik Hierlemann and Alexandra Geese on linking participatory and representative democracy

01:40:28

Question of Ionuț Sibian (EESC) on structured dialogue and Democracy Shield — answer by Jane Suiter

01:44:01

Question of Leo Galvin on the impact of the EU Youth Dialogue — answers by Ignacy Niemczycki and Jane Suiter

01:47:54

Question of Daniela Vancic on the European Citizens' Initiative — answers by Marie‑Hélène Boulanger and Alexandra Geese

01:51:16

Coffee break and organisational announcements — Dominik Hierlemann

01:55:06

Keynote — Art O'Leary — Irish citizens' assemblies and deliberative democracy

02:22:43

Dominik Hierlemann — introduction of Art O’Leary

02:22:43

Art O'Leary — Irish experience with citizens' assemblies and key design principles

02:24:48

Q&A with Art O'Leary — Political culture and inclusiveness of citizens' assemblies

02:38:27

Exchange between Dominik Hierlemann and Art O'Leary on political culture and conflict in Ireland

02:38:27

Exchange between Dominik Hierlemann and Art O'Leary on public perception and fatigue with citizens' assemblies

02:41:24

Exchange between Dominik Hierlemann and Art O’Leary on inclusiveness of marginalized groups and his philosophy of democracy

02:43:31

Panel 2 — Making participative and deliberative democracy more inclusive: community and citizen responses

02:47:45

Barriers to participation and Roma inclusion strategies

02:47:45

Dominik Hierlemann — introduction of Panel 2, panellists and Slido on barriers for marginalized communities

02:47:45

Exchange between Dominik Hierlemann and Soraya Post on Roma inclusion and human‑rights based approaches

02:51:37

Youth participation, disinformation and backlash against child and family policies

02:58:27

Exchange between Dominik Hierlemann and Georgi Elenkov on disinformation, youth participation and radicalisation in Bulgaria

02:58:27

Participatory pilots with marginalized groups and creative, art-based methods

03:06:54

Exchange between Dominik Hierlemann and Marta on INSPIRE project pilots with marginalized groups

03:06:54

Follow‑up exchange on "training democracy muscles" and institutional responsibilities

03:14:05

Historical perspectives and contemporary models of democratic participation

03:15:30

Exchange between Dominik Hierlemann and Ben on medieval participation and Belgium’s permanent citizens’ dialogue

03:15:30

Youth councils and child participation in Italy and Europe

03:25:42

Exchange on Italian youth councils, outreach challenges and lack of accountability

03:25:42

Q&A — Panel 2

03:31:42

Audience question on diversity in EU public administration and Ben’s response

03:31:42

Audience questions on NGO funding, tokenism and multilingual democratic participation

03:36:31

Panel 2 wrap-up — investing in democracy and call for a democracy budget line

03:43:14

Closing remarks — Olive McGovern

03:44:55

Olive McGovern — conference closing remarks

03:44:55

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Strengthening Inclusive Democratic Participation and Civic Engagement within the European Union - Presidency events

12 November 2026

Council of the European Union Thu, 12 Nov 2026 European Council

Follow its sittings

02:58 - 03:15

Speaker 1

Okay, for the last time this evening, boys and girls, we're going to ask you to give us a nice bit of ciúnas. A very beautiful song you know very well. It's back to 1916 and one of the forgotten heroes of that period of time, a young man called Joseph Mary Plunkett. While he was awaiting execution, he married his long-time girlfriend, Grace Gifford.

03:16 - 03:16

A very beautiful song called "Grace".

17:07 - 17:43

Dominik Hierlemann

Moderator

Hello. Hello and a very warm welcome to all of you. I'd like to welcome you to our conference, Strengthening Inclusive Democratic Participation and Civic Engagement Within the EU, and just from the length of the title you see we've got a lot of lot to discuss. Over the last days, I've been thinking a little bit about the conference, and how do I kick it off, I thought. So, there is different options, as always in life.

The first option is, because this is a conference about participation, I thought we're doing lots of participation exercises at the beginning.

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European Council

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Ask anything about this video — I analyse its transcript to answer.

European Council

Read the full session, transcribed live

Try it free, or come back on 27 November: the transcript will be public.

Live transcript, every speaker identified
The biography of every member of your parliament, with its assistant
Alerts on your keywords, and your questions to Claude or ChatGPT

Every video is free to watch, live and on replay, no account needed.

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