A group of citizen representatives from Maastricht attended on 5 June an online citizens’ summit organized under the project “euPrevent COVID-19”.
With the experts from GGD South Limburg (Public Health Department South Limburg) and EPECS (European Patients Empowerment for Customised Solutions), the citizens discussed their personal experiences during the corona pandemic. The citizens had an open discussion and were glad to have such a platform to get their voices heard by the experts and professionals.
The experiences of citizens from Maastricht are valuable as they live in the cross-border region, the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion (the EMR). They were particularly influenced by the different national measures adopted by different countries. The impacts of corona on these citizens are not only felt in almost every aspect of their daily life, work and social contacts, but also reach an unprecedented level that people have never experienced before. Moreover, when it comes to finding out applicable rules in particular (cross-border) cases, people found it very difficult. For the majority of the participants during COVID times they experienced for the first time in their lives the fact that there are really borders. It hindered them a lot and they were more and more aware of how crossing the border was part of their normal daily live, and how it wasn’t possible during COVID. However, the citizens showed their willingness to adapt to the changing situation. It is the hope of everyone present at the citizens’ summit that such a good contact between the citizens and professionals will continue and contribute to a hopefully better solution for a future pandemic.
This citizens’ summit is the second of 8 citizens’ events organized within the framework of the project “euPrevent COVID-19”, an Interreg VA EMR funded project which aims to examine the impact of COVID-19 on the EMR. There will be more citizens’ summits organized in different regions within the EMR. For those who are interested in participating, here is the link to register for the events: https://euprevent.eu/summits-covid/.