European Citizens’ Panel
“New democratic toolbox for new Institutions”

This project is a successful proposal to an open call of the European Commission, DG Education and Culture, under which the Commission endeavours to test out new methods of engaging citizens with the European Union. This initiative marks clear interest of the EU in the participatory democracy methods as a part of the response to democratic deficit in the EU, especially in the wake of the negative referendums on the Constitutional/Lisbon Treaty. After the Irish “NO” in 2008 the need for greater citizens’ participation and therefore ownership of the European project has become even more pronounced. The participatory democracy methods have already been employed by the civil society contractors in the framework of Plan D pioneering projects, which have been carried out directly after the negative referenda in order to investigate citizens’ ideas on the future of Europe. This series of projects have enjoyed tremendous interest not only from the EU institutions but also national governments, parliaments and civil society. The shortcoming of these projects was, however, a very weak follow-up by the EU institutions. With the new call for Citizens’ Panels, there comes a clear commitment from DG Education and Culture to follow up on the results of these deliberations.

The project’s overarching objective is to use one of the participatory methods – the Citizens’ Panel – on the European scale in order to bring about operational recommendations from citizens on their engagement with EU policy-making via participatory democracy methods.

For more information about the project and its activities please download the document below:

Project summary (download here )

In the framework of the project four national citizens’ panels were conducted in Germany, Bulgaria, Hungary and Latvia. For more information read National Reports:

National Report from Germany

National Report from Bulgaria

National Report from Hungary

National Report from Latvia

Interim European Report (download here )

Final Report (download here PDF)

As a continuation and conclusion of Citizens' panels a European Conference will be held on February 26, 2010. This event will bringing citizens, experts and decision makers into dialogue with each other on citizen participation. For more information about the Conference click here...

Click HERE( ) to download the press release.