The EU for Global National Citizens’ Panel in Riga, Latvia, took place on 27 November 2025 and was hosted by the Latvian Platform for Development Cooperation (LAPAS). The panel brought together citizens from across Latvia to reflect on the role of the European Union in the world, with a particular focus on strengthening community resilience, promoting active citizenship, and fostering solidarity. To maximise visibility and reach a broader audience, the Citizens’ Panel was held in conjunction with Global Education Week in Riga.
The Citizens’ Panel began with six five-minute TED Talk Style speeches, presented by regional NGOs working in the areas related to the community resilience, active citizenship and solidarity. D.Zeltiņš as president of youth NGO ‘Club House’ spoke about democratic sustainability and youth voices; I.Strazdiņa project lead of Green Liberty spoke about climate change and its social context; I.Pērkone head of the NGO ‘Women 50+’ spoke about demographic challenges and the role and responsibility of all citizens; D.Mita senior researcher at ‘Baltic Human Rights Society’ spoke about human rights; A.Birule deputy director of ‘TI Latvia Delna’ spoke about global partnerships ; and I.Kelle a chair of the board of the NGO ‘Papardes zieds’ spoke about how to tackle disinformation and the importance of civil society resilience. All in all, these speeches by various experts contextualized the discussion of the Panel by focusing on practical applications in the NGO space.
Following the presentations from the experts, the participations were divided into six groups, all led by the NGO experts to participate in a world-cafe discussions on resilience, active citizenship and solidarity. To reach the objective of creating recommendations, as part of the EU for Global project, the methodology used by the experts was developed to cover discussion steps focusing on defining first, the challenges and then an open discussion on solutions and recommendations at EU, national and local level.
Building on these discussions, the panel generated a set of concrete recommendations aimed at different levels of governance. To read all the recommendations collected throughout Europe during Local and Transnational Citizens’ Panels, click here.
The EU for Global project is funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or CERV. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
