Eumans! 4th Congress – Restart Democracy

Representative democracy, built on national frameworks and the pursuit of immediate electoral consensus, can no longer address the major challenges of our time — wars, failure to act on climate change, technological revolution, social fractures — which instead require cross-border and long-term responses.

European political leaders raise their voices to exploit popular anger for electoral purposes, feeding nationalist illusions. This is weakening Europe, while strengthening authoritarian powers and transnational economic oligarchies.

This vicious circle must be broken by bringing citizens back to the heart of politics. Democracy is not just “elections”; it also means informed participation in public decision-making.

The goal of Eumans — a pan-European movement for popular initiative — is to restart democracy by directly involving people beyond national borders, both at European and local level. We aim to activate and technologically strengthen participatory tools such as referendums, citizens’ initiatives and randomly selected citizens’ assemblies.

After Warsaw, Gdańsk and Brussels, the fourth Eumans Congress is being held in Paris, in a country where the paralysis of representative democracy has led to an unprecedented institutional credibility crisis. At the same time, France is home to civic initiatives, including local ones, that could turn the country into a laboratory for democratic innovation and citizen participation.

For Eumans, restarting democracy in Europe is not an end in itself: it is essential to stop the continent’s decline and deliver effective answers to improve people’s quality of life and the health of our ecosystem.

During the Congress, we will build on the campaigns we have been working on in recent months: for European systems of civic artificial intelligence; for the defence of the International Criminal Court; for human rights and civil liberties; for safe abortion (with the European Citizens’ Initiative “My Voice My Choice”) and for legal euthanasia (currently under discussion in the French Parliament); for a global taxation system on emissions and resource consumption; for ending subsidies to factory farming and against polar bear hunting.