Thought Piece | Scaling Trust: The Future of the European Political Dialogue Community

Isotta Ricci Bitti, Managing Director, APROPOS Group

The Open European Dialogue (OED) has connected Members of Parliament (MPs) across parties and across Europe for over a decade. Unlike the daily international exposure Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) experience in Brussels, most national-level MPs rarely engage, frequently and informally, with peers from other countries despite confronting many of the same challenges. The OED set out to change that by bringing politicians together, modelling good dialogue, and equipping them with the skills to engage constructively with political adversaries.

A Decade of Trust-Building

One of the OED’s greatest strengths has been its hands-on approach to community building.

We relied on personal calls, one-to-one messages, and face-to-face encounters and very rarely used mass emails or automated campaigns. This deliberate approach built remarkable trust and loyalty among a growing community of 300 parliamentarians. When we host online events, we know they work primarily because they're built on years of real-world relationship-building.

Now, we face a new challenge: there are circa 10,000 national-level MPs across Europe. Reaching just a few hundred isn’t enough when the goal is to improve the quality of political dialogue on a continental scale. To stay true to our objective, the time has come to scale. But how can we do so without losing the trust and the strength of the human relationships that we’ve painstakingly built? Over ten years, we’ve built a reservoir of goodwill among hundreds of politicians. The logical next step could be to empower them to take on a more active role as ambassadors, with the aim of including more of their peers in genuine and informal dialogue spaces, letting that trust flow at a peer-to-peer level, in ways we can’t realistically expect to manage as a small team.

To be fair, we’ve already seen dozens of them excel in this role as natural “connectors,” but we aspire to institutionalise these efforts further, promoting quality dialogue on a broader scale.

Sustaining an Enduring Community

This past January, during the first edition of the Political Tech Summit in Berlin, we encountered community builders who handle massive online communities.

For example, we met with community leaders who manage enormous volunteer groups that mobilise to support political parties as they campaign for election. These communities flourish around an immediate cause and sense of urgency, yet they tend to dissolve once the objective is reached.

Our mission, however, is sustained, not punctual: to promote better dialogue in politics, always, year after year. But how can a long-term political community remain effective and sustainable while pursuing such a broad and ongoing goal? And can it do so while operating online?

Reflecting on the evolution of the OED — Europe’s first and only political dialogue community — we want to preserve our hallmark of personal connection, while making it easier for more policymakers to participate and engage with one another, including online. Politicians could be onboarded digitally to expand our reach, while those seeking deeper engagement could join a dedicated, trust-based circle.

We want to keep fostering one-on-one or small-group interactions, just more of them. To do so we are looking into platform solutions to improve our community's scaleability.

Making “Better Dialogue” a Permanent Fixture of Democratic Spaces

Our aim is to make “better dialogue in politics” an ongoing practice rather than a one-time effort. In environments marked by polarisation, dialogue and participatory skills are not just “soft” interpersonal abilities; they are essential competencies with a tangible impact on political outcomes. These skills are fundamental for conflict resolution, negotiation, and bridging divides in policymaking.

Politicians who are able to master these abilities will possess the capacity to de-escalate societal tensions, foster mutual understanding, and identify common ground - without compromising their core values.

We believe that a crucial shift is finally taking place: the recognition that navigating ideological and societal differences with skill and intention is just as vital as the technical expertise needed to shape the future of politics. As political dialogue evolves, so must the tools and infrastructure that support it.

Call To Action

If you’re interested in contributing to the future of the Open European Dialogue, whether as a member of parliament, a think tank, a community leader, or an investor committed to democratic resilience, I’d love to connect. Together, we can foster trust and ensure that respectful, constructive political engagement continues to shape our democracies.

Reach out and help us strengthen Europe's first Political Dialogue Community and deliver the next decade of impact.

Reach me at isotta[at]aproposgroup.org