Seznam Zprávy | The voice of the people is the voice of God. 150 Europeans will help decide on 30 trillion crowns

The selection of panelists is overseen by a network of agencies specializing in participatory democracy and representation in citizens' panels across Europe. The goal is to achieve a representative sample, similar to how public opinion polls are conducted.

Of course, you can’t take the opinion of an average citizen and directly apply it to the allocation of a multi-billion budget. Despite how the Commission describes the initiative, I see the whole thing more as a public opinion survey, and it's hard to say whether the proposals will actually be reflected in the final figures. In the Czech Republic, we’re not used to this model, but in countries like Switzerland it works – and the very creation of a platform through which the Commission can learn what people want to see in the budget makes sense.

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