On September 18, the European Citizens' Panel on Democratic Resilience opened in Brussels. Oleksandra Keudel, Coordinator’s principal investigator of the BRIDGE project and director of the KSE Center for Democratic Resilience, presented the experience of the citizens' assembly organized with the Zhytomyr City Council.

A citizens' panel is a form of deliberative democracy, similar to citizens' assemblies. The Panel brought together 150 randomly selected EU citizens in Brussels to develop recommendations on democratic resilience, including for the implementation of the EU's European Democracy Shield programme.

The invitation to take part in the Panel came through the BRIDGE project, coordinated by KSE and funded by the EU under the Horizon Europe programme.

During Keudel's presentation, the audience was most interested in the results of the assembly—participants' trust to local government grew stronger, and the residents of Zhytomyr put forward responsible and constructive solutions.

"Today, Ukrainians are showing Europe firsthand that democratic practices are not a peacetime luxury but a value worth defending. And this is a culture that lives in horizontal networks, in cooperation between government and citizens, which is especially evident at the local level, despite russia's aggression," — Oleksandra.

It matters for Ukraine that its voice is heard in the European conversation about democracy. The outcome will become clear when the Panel completes its work, expected in November or December.