Our democracy becomes weaker, more vulnerable to misinformation and disinformation and prone to social unrest if citizens do not have a reasonable understanding of how democracy works across the different levels of government, from local to national and EU-level, including of the checks and balances that are in place to protect our rights, as well as an overview of how each citizen can take an active role, participate and contribute to decision-making across the different levels of government.

To address this, could the Commission encourage Member States to include in the school curricula a component on human rights, democracy and civic participation? If this is outside of the scope of work, might an international Forum on this topic be hosted, and perhaps repeated every 2-3 years?