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Bertelsmann Stiftung

The Bertelsmann Stiftung promotes democracy, social market economy principles, and equal participation in society across political, economic, and cultural spheres.

Lobbying Activity

Meeting with Werner Stengg (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen)

8 Dec 2025 · Digital policy

Meeting with Jan Hendrik Dopheide (Cabinet of Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič)

7 Nov 2025 · EU-UK relations

Meeting with Nele Eichhorn (Head of Unit Secretariat-General)

7 Nov 2025 · State of play of relations between the EU and the UK

Meeting with Heinz Jansen (Principal Adviser Secretariat-General)

28 Oct 2025 · EU Competitiveness and Future Economic Model

Meeting with Sergey Lagodinsky (Member of the European Parliament)

11 Sept 2025 · Participant Event

Meeting with Alexander Gemberg-Wiesike (Principal Adviser Regulatory Scrutiny Board)

2 Sept 2025 · Exchange of views on the Commission's simplification agenda

Meeting with Alexandra Geese (Member of the European Parliament) and Association of Commercial Television and Video on Demand Services in Europe and

2 Sept 2025 · Event: Democratic Tech Alliance

Meeting with Georgia Papagianni (Cabinet of Commissioner Dubravka Šuica), Raül Hernández Sagrera (Cabinet of Commissioner Dubravka Šuica) and Gulf Research Center Foundation Brussels

28 Aug 2025 · Introductory meeting

Meeting with René Repasi (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur) and France Digitale and

17 Jul 2025 · 28. Regime

Meeting with Rasmus Andresen (Member of the European Parliament)

25 Jun 2025 · Fiscal Policy

Meeting with Lena Düpont (Member of the European Parliament)

22 May 2025 · Security research & Resilience

Meeting with Axel Voss (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur) and Google and

6 May 2025 · Copyright and generative AI

Meeting with Helena Robyn (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné) and Association of Commercial Television and Video on Demand Services in Europe and

18 Feb 2025 · Geo-blocking AI Piracy

Meeting with Andrius Kubilius (Commissioner) and

6 Feb 2025 · Informal exchange on European Defence.

Meeting with Christiane Canenbley (Acting Director Budget)

3 Feb 2025 · next MFF: • Policy instruments; • Design and structure; • Policy focusses and priorities; • Implementation management modes: shared and direct management; •Extent of high-risk investments and ratio of public and private investments; • and other

Meeting with Sergey Lagodinsky (Member of the European Parliament)

31 Jan 2025 · Speaker

Meeting with Věra Jourová (Vice-President) and

2 Oct 2024 · Democracy

Meeting with Werner Stengg (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager)

11 Dec 2023 · AI Act

Meeting with Axel Voss (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

15 Sept 2023 · AI Act

Meeting with Damian Boeselager (Member of the European Parliament)

12 Sept 2023 · EU elections and EU democracy

Meeting with Alexandra Geese (Member of the European Parliament) and Reset Tech UK

20 Jun 2023 · Europe Calling: “Künstliche Intelligenz und Demokratie: Welchen Weg geht Europa?”

Meeting with Věra Jourová (Vice-President)

11 May 2023 · Defence of Democracy package

Response to Recommendation on covert interference from third countries

13 Apr 2023

While we applaud the Commissions efforts to defend democracy, we believe that the currently proposed measures remain too vague and timid on the key aspect of citizen participation. We propose the creation of a Charter of Citizen Participation (see also the results of the citizens panels of the Conference on the Future of Europe). This charter should be a comparable and standardized working basis for citizen participation in member states and on the EU level. It should provide practical guidance and a joint understanding of citizen participation through the establishment of principles of good participation that ideally all participation processes on all levels of government should adhere to. We propose the institutionalization of Citizens Assemblies at the EU level. Institutionalization can improve the quality of EU policymaking by channeling citizens input into EU policies, enriching all-EU public debates on politically salient issues, contributing to greater visibility of EU policymaking for European citizens and, as a result, lead to better connections between EU policymakers and citizens. A more detailed model for such institutionalization is described in our report Next level citizen participation in the EU. Institutionalizing European Citizens Assemblies (Link: https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/de/publikationen/publikation/did/next-level-citizen-participation-in-the-eu-all) . We propose the creation of a coherent single platform for participation on the European level. Citizen participation at the EU- as well as national and sub-national levels can be practiced via a plethora of different means (for a comprehensive analysis of the EUs participation infrastructure, see: Under Construction: Citizen Participation in the European Union by the Bertelsmann Stiftung and the European Policy Centre [Link: https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/de/publikationen/publikation/did/under-construction]). A single platform would be a clear point of departure and information for citizens and EU officials alike, with information on tools and processes that are accessible and easy to find (compare to the Finnish platform https://www.demokratia.fi/). It should be a point of direct engagement of the citizen with the European Union, without demanding any prior knowledge on EU institutions and processes. It should connect the various existing participation instruments into a logical whole, should be solely web-based, multilingual, well designed, with a minimum of information overload and a maximum of usability. It could also be a testing ground for novel digital participation solutions such as Pol.Is. We propose that the European Commission takes the lead in advancing citizen participation as a practice across levels of governance. The European Commission should coordinate actions necessary for expansion of citizen participation practices across levels, joining forces with other EU institutions such as the Committee of the Regions. It could also provide additional resources for capacity-building for state officials and civil servants on matters of citizen participation across all levels. As a result, citizen participation (in various formats) will become a widely used systematic practice rather than separated instances at the national or transnational level. We propose that the European Commission takes the lead in putting forward measures that better link representative and participatory democracy in the EU. When it comes to forging these links and connections, some attention could be directed to encouraging legislatures and parliaments to establish practices of sortition-based consultations with ordinary citizens: citizens juries, citizens assemblies, councils, and panels.
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Meeting with Katarina Barley (Member of the European Parliament)

13 Apr 2023 · Demokratieförderung

Meeting with Katarina Barley (Member of the European Parliament)

2 Mar 2023 · EU Enlargement Policy (Staff Level)

Meeting with Ingrid Godkin (Cabinet of Vice-President Dubravka Šuica), Ivo Belet (Cabinet of Vice-President Dubravka Šuica)

27 Feb 2023 · Discussion on deliberative democracy and the European citizen panels.

Meeting with Birgit Sippel (Member of the European Parliament) and Google and

1 Feb 2023 · European Media Freedom Act (Staff-Level)

Meeting with Věra Jourová (Vice-President)

18 Jan 2023 · Rule of law, legal security

Meeting with Dubravka Šuica (Vice-President) and Save the Children Europe and

24 Nov 2022 · Youth and child participation, Conference on the Future of Europe and follow-up, threats to democracy, demographic challenges and Youth Action Plan.

Meeting with Daniel Freund (Member of the European Parliament)

27 Jun 2022 · European Citizens’ Assembly

Meeting with Aleksandra Tomczak (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans)

7 Jun 2022 · Exchange of views with the Bertelsmann Stiftung fellows about the current situation on the energy market

Response to Specifications for information and communication technologies usage and e-commerce

4 May 2022

For assessing the heterogeneous effects created by various policies, it would be very helpful if the data is provided on a regionally disaggregated level, i.e. at least for NUTS-2 regions, ideally for NUTS-3 regions. This would also allow evaluating placed-based policies and increases the value of the survey data tremendously for policy-related research.
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Meeting with Monika Ladmanova (Cabinet of Vice-President Věra Jourová)

25 Apr 2022 · Event and Study on Citizen Participation in the EU

Meeting with Axel Voss (Member of the European Parliament)

22 Feb 2022 · Artificial Intelligence

Meeting with Věra Jourová (Vice-President)

21 May 2021 · The Digital Way to EU Citizen Participation: The Conference on the Future of Europe

Meeting with Rolf Carsten Bermig (Cabinet of Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska)

6 Feb 2019 · Artificial intelligence

Meeting with Marie Frenay (Cabinet of Vice-President Andrus Ansip)

6 Feb 2019 · Artificial Intelligence, Transparency of Algorithms, Fight against Disinformation

Meeting with Ruth Paserman (Cabinet of Commissioner Marianne Thyssen)

29 Oct 2018 · Regional forum for social and economic policy

Meeting with Antoine Colombani (Cabinet of First Vice-President Frans Timmermans)

17 Oct 2018 · European Citizens Initiative reform

Meeting with Martin Selmayr (Secretary-General Secretariat-General)

18 Sept 2018 · Future of EU and the State of the Union speech of President Juncker

Meeting with Themis Christophidou (Director-General Education, Youth, Sport and Culture)

13 Jul 2018 · Future and sustainability of U-Multirank

Meeting with Piet van Nuffel (Cabinet of Commissioner Marianne Thyssen), Vasiliki Kokkori (Cabinet of Commissioner Marianne Thyssen)

17 May 2018 · Future of Work

Meeting with Manuel Mateo Goyet (Cabinet of Commissioner Mariya Gabriel)

16 May 2018 · Digital skills

Meeting with Vasiliki Kokkori (Cabinet of Commissioner Marianne Thyssen)

27 Mar 2018 · Pressing challenges for European labour markets and recent government reactions

Meeting with Xavier Prats Monné (Director-General Health and Food Safety)

15 Nov 2017 · Discussion on digitization of Healthcare

Meeting with Günther Oettinger (Commissioner)

11 Jul 2017 · Europathemen

Meeting with Ruth Paserman (Cabinet of Commissioner Marianne Thyssen)

29 Mar 2017 · Bertelsmann Stiftung’s EU Reform Barometer.

Meeting with Nils Behrndt (Cabinet of Vice-President Neven Mimica)

29 Mar 2017 · July 2016 Global Report on the SDG index & dashboards

Meeting with Günther Oettinger (Commissioner)

28 Mar 2017 · aktuelle europapolitische Aspekte

Meeting with Clara Martinez Alberola (Cabinet of President Jean-Claude Juncker), Luc Tholoniat (Cabinet of President Jean-Claude Juncker), Martin Selmayr (Cabinet of President Jean-Claude Juncker) and

27 Feb 2017 · EPSC High Level Policy lunch : The Future of Europe, Charting a New Course at a Critical Moment

Meeting with Andrus Ansip (Vice-President) and

18 Jan 2017 · Privacy, artificial intelligence

Meeting with Massimo Suardi (Cabinet of Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis)

10 Mar 2016 · The Future of the euro: more discipline for more solidarity?

Meeting with Xavier Prats Monné (Director-General Health and Food Safety)

19 Feb 2016 · Presenting the programme 'improving healthcare – informing patients' and discussion on health systems and policies

Meeting with Ruth Paserman (Cabinet of Commissioner Marianne Thyssen), Stefaan Hermans (Cabinet of Commissioner Marianne Thyssen), Vasiliki Kokkori (Cabinet of Commissioner Marianne Thyssen)

16 Feb 2016 · Follow up on Vision Europe Summit (VES) 2015

Meeting with Nils Behrndt (Cabinet of Vice-President Neven Mimica)

4 Feb 2016 · Good governance in developing countries and Bertelsmann-Transformation-Index

Meeting with Matthias Ruete (Director-General Migration and Home Affairs)

9 Nov 2015 · Intergration of Refugees into the Labour Market

Meeting with Michel Servoz (Director-General Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion)

9 Nov 2015 · Inequality and current social issues

Meeting with Ann Mettler (Director-General Inspire, Debate, Engage and Accelerate Action)

2 Jul 2015 · Meeting with Senior Manager

Meeting with Frans Timmermans (First Vice-President) and

17 Jun 2015 · New Pact for Europe 2015 event - keynote speech

Meeting with Ann Mettler (Director-General Inspire, Debate, Engage and Accelerate Action)

14 Apr 2015 · Meeting with Bertelsmann Stiftung CEO

Meeting with Marianne Thyssen (Commissioner) and

14 Apr 2015 · EU employment and social policy

Meeting with Christian Burgsmueller (Cabinet of Vice-President Cecilia Malmström)

5 Mar 2015 · TTIP

Meeting with Massimo Suardi (Cabinet of Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis)

4 Mar 2015 · Presentation of pilot study on the future of Economic and Monetary Union (Bertelsmann Stiftung und Jacques Delors Institut Berlin)

Meeting with Reinhard Felke (Cabinet of Commissioner Pierre Moscovici)

4 Mar 2015 · Presentation of pilot study on the future of Economic and Monetary Union

Meeting with Reinhard Felke (Cabinet of Commissioner Pierre Moscovici) and Jacques Delors Institut - Berlin, gemeinnützige GmbH

4 Mar 2015 · Presentation of pilot study on the future of Economic and Monetary Union

Meeting with Colin Scicluna (Cabinet of Vice-President Johannes Hahn)

11 Feb 2015 · informations on ENP conference Tunis