On June 7 a conference organised by the European Citizens Action Service on the future of the period of reflection on the Constitution and Plan D was attended by over 300 people, mainly representatives of regions, NGOs, think-tanks and the media. The debate, on Plan D 'The Citizens' Right to Know', was chaired by Alejo Vidal-Quadras, vice-president of the European Parliament.

The National Council of Women was represented by Doris Bingley, general secretary.

The debate was lively, often controversial, revealing a need for the EU institutions to work towards a better consensus and co-ordination of Plan D and a communication policy more generally.

In opening the debate, Mr Vidal-Quadras suggested that there was a lack of consensus not about the subject matter for Plan D but about what it was for. For some it was to forge a new consensus about the future of the Constitution; for others, on the contrary, it had to avoid being a rescue operation for the Constitution and it should deliver short-term results, for example in the 'Citizens' Agenda' presented by the European Commission.

The ambiguous nature of the aim of Plan D could lead to a number of pitfalls:

- Citizens could have the feeling of being consulted and then ignored;

- The need to deliver short-term results could detract from the long-term aim; and

- Plan D should not postpone overcoming the information deficit.

There was broad agreement on the themes discussed, which related more to the context than the Constitution itself. From Eurobarometer surveys and statements by the Commission and the European Parliament, the need to define the economic and social model was stressed by Jo Leinen.

The European Parliament was clearly aware of this and had shown in its compromise over the Services Directive that it took account of public concern on social dumping. There was consensus too on other matters - the EU and globalisation as well as the pace of enlargement, where people in the old member states had been clearly not informed enough about the accession of 10 new member states.

A majority of participants wanted Plan D to make a bigger impact through more vision and better delivery.

At this conference, there was plenty of advice from experts in the audience and speakers on how the European Union could communicate better. Plan D needed to appeal to people's everyday concerns, but also to their idealism on broader themes, like peace-building.

For some the issue was not information and communication but lack of vision. Why not replace Plan-D by Plan-EU? For others, notably Margot Wallström, this was not, like previous European Commissions, one which could project a single project and was "not yet at the stage where we can tell the modern story".

However, Plan D lacks strong ideas or symbols: creating a peace corps or a European public holiday were mentioned as examples. It should be given a much higher profile and reach a wider audience, particularly through television.

In general, there was support for more resources for a more ambitious Plan D, which it was hoped would be endorsed by the European Council.

There appeared to be a consensus in favour of concentrating Plan D around three types of action, which should be mutually reinforcing and achieve a critical mass in every member state and region:

Engagement with civil society - it was noted that dialogue with civil society had been largely absent. Daniel Spoel on behalf of the Permanent Forum for Civil Society suggested that there should be an annual civil society event funded by the Commission.

Another project could be to link civil society summits to European Council meetings. The extent of investment of civil society in Plan D at national level appeared to be extremely uneven.

Citizens' panels and use of other new techniques for deliberative democracy - one of the positive aspects of Plan D was that it had generated interest in new techniques to build bridges between the EU and citizens. Alongside Eurobarometer and other opinion polls more qualitative and active techniques were recommended.

Debates with citizens - while citizens' panels were based on random selection to be representative of the population, public debates with citizens evidently were not. Nevertheless, these debates, particularly at a regional and local level, had a valuable function.

A report would be made to the European Council on the Citizens Fora, which the European Parliament had so far organised in a number of countries. It was important to give citizens the opportunity to debate with people from other EU countries.

There should be more linking of national debates on similar themes as well as cross-border and European events.

NCW looks forward with great interest to the future plans and actions, which will affect Malta and indeed all the EU member states.