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Europe of Agorai (2005–2009)

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Abstract

The fourth representation of European citizenship emerged in the context of the Constitutional Treaty and the appointment of Margot Wallström as Commissioner for Communication Strategy who began to create a ‘Europe of Agorai’ for European civil-spatial citizens. What this meant was that the European citizen was understood as an intelligent and rational deliberator who is interested in and knowledgeable about European policies and who could (at least in theory) act as a policy-advisor to the European Commission. The European Commission believed that debate and dialogue facilitated by newly built virtual and physical European agorai would give European citizens the real possibility to debate European topics, to voice their own opinions and to gain ‘ownership’ of the European project.

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Pukallus, S. (2016). Europe of Agorai (2005–2009). In: Representations of European Citizenship since 1951. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51147-8_5

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