After much deliberation and
discussion amongst citizens and experts during the European Citizens’ Panel on
26 February 2010 at the European Economic and Social Committee, ECAS and
partner organisations have drafted and released a publication called ‘How
the Participatory Democracy Toolbox Can Make the European Union Less Remote
from Citizens.’ It outlines the need for and the advantages of citizen
participation, what techniques of citizen participation are available, what the
experience has been so far with citizen participation at the European level,
and how a citizen pillar could be built into EU policy-making.
This final report points
out that there are already a variety of instruments available to the EU that
have been tried, proven to work and that more are likely to develop which will
allow for two-way communication with millions of citizens at even lower costs
(online deliberations). Evaluations and assessments drawn upon for this report
show information, consultation and participation, different top-down,
bottom-up, centralising or decentralising approaches can and should co-exist.
The European Parliament and
Council of Ministers are giving priority to negotiating the Commission’s draft
regulation on citizens’ initiatives to implement conditions for the one million
signatures under Article 11.4. However, no one thinks this is the only way to
involve citizens in European policy-making. During the conference, citizens and
experts discussed different tools with which to bridge the gap between citizens
and policy-makers as well as issues that citizens would like to be consulted,
the processes, and follow-up/results.
Following National Citizens’ Panels in Bulgaria, Germany,
Hungary, and Latvia, a European Citizens’
Panel was held in Brussels
to discuss how citizens would like to be involved in EU decision-making. There,
they discussed with both each other and with experts what formats and on what
issues of EU policy-making they would like to be consulted. This final event
involved citizens from the four Member States and other projects, experts, and
representatives of the EU Institutions. In parallel, ECAS organised an expert
panel involving practitioners, the partner organisations, experts, and academics
to help ‘test’ the citizens’ recommendations and to identify opportunities for
action.
To our knowledge, this is
the first time that citizens themselves have been asked to consider how best
participatory democracy deliberations should be organised rather than specific
issues. Though the issue might appear theoretical, the debates and the
recommendations drawn up by the citizens show that they can indeed grasp
complex or abstract issues and more importantly, that they are enthusiastic to
be involved in EU decision-making in a constructive and transparent manner.
As a result, the final
report includes a proposal for building on the first experimental wave of
European projects with a more strategic approach. It suggests using guidelines and a checklist
for building citizens’ pillar in EU policy-making along with five
recommendations for the next steps to be taken in order to turn an experiment
into a strategy.
