EU-CIEMBLY Policy-Makers Forum

The EU-CIEMBLY Project held its first Policy-Makers Forum on 10 February 2026 in Brussels.

The Forum opened with a keynote speech by Ana Carla Pereira, Director ‘Equality and Non-Discrimination’ at the Directorate General for Justice and Consumers (European Commission), and it was structured around three roundtables.

The first roundtable, Engaging with Intersectionality in Public Policy and Legislation, focused on the definitions of intersectionality as results of Work Package 2. We were joined by Katja Reppel, Head of Unit ‘Democracy, Equality & Culture’ at the Directorate-General for Research & Innovation (European Commission), and Juliane Neiiendam, Vice-President of the Permanent Group on Equality (European Economic and Social Committee).

The second roundtable, Intersectionality in Citizens’ Participation, was dedicated to deliberative mechanisms case studies developed in Work Package 3 and to provide a brief overview of our three pilots. We were joined by Ângela Guimarães, Head of the Competence Centre on Participatory and Deliberative Democracy (Joint Research Centre), and Edit Lakatos, Policy Officer at the Housing Task Force (European Commission). 

The Policy-Makers Forum concluded with the final roundtable, Working Together Towards Intersectionality-Oriented Citizens’ Assemblies. This session aimed to create a space to share experiences on how to engage with stakeholders, as part of Work Package 5 of the EU-CIEMBLY project. We were joined by Daina Naujokaité, from the Area on Public Opinion & Citizens Engagement of the Directorate-General for Communication; Corina Stratulat, Associate Director and Head of Programme European Policy Centre; and members of the SINCRONY Project.

The Policy-Makers Forum provided a valuable opportunity to strengthen collaboration between the project team and European policymakers in the fields of intersectionality and deliberative democracy. The insights gathered during the event will inform the next stages of the project. A second Policy-Makers Forum will be held at the beginning of 2027.