29.9.2023
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
C 349/71
3.4.
At EU level, the largest exercise of participatory and deliberative democracy to date has been the Conference on the Future of Europe, where four citizens’ panels were organised to allow citizens to reflect together on the future they would like for the European Union.
The EESC was formally involved in this initiative.
It welcomes the fact that this pilot project is being thoroughly evaluated so that lessons can be learned about how to improve possible future initiatives. 3.5.
In particular, the EESC regrets the low level of coverage and interest that this conference received in the Member States, as well as the confusion about its objectives. 3.6.
In the final report (2) of the Conference on the Future of Europe, recommendation 36 on information and participation of citizens, and recommendation 39 on the EU decision-making process, are giving the EESC a clear mandate to structurally strengthen its institutional role as guarantor and facilitator of participatory democracy activities, such as structured dialogue with civil society organisations and citizens’ panels.
From an institutional point of view, the EESC is perfectly placed to play a role in enhancing participatory democracy, acting coherently and comprehensively. 3.7.
The EU already has an elaborate set of EU participation instruments, which includes, e.g., the elections to the European Parliament, Citizens’ Dialogues and the European Citizens’ Initiative, Petitions to the European Parliament, and the European Ombudsman.
Moreover, in the preparation of legislative initiatives, the Commission holds public consultations with the aim of giving stakeholders — including citizens — the chance to have their say on a given topic.
The public consultations are anchored in the Commission’s Better Regulation Guidelines and take place via the Commission’s Have Your Say portal. 3.8.
The European citizens’ initiative (ECI), created in 2012, is one of the main innovations in participatory democracy at EU level.
It allows a group of citizens to put an issue on the agenda of EU legislative bodies. 3.9.
However, the four ECIs that have managed to gather the one million signatures required for the European Commission to respond have had a relatively small impact so far, with legislative proposals adopted as follow-up to the Right2Water and Ban Glyphosate initiatives and a proposal announced for 2023 to ban cages for all animals.
In the EESC’s view, the ECI has not fully lived up to expectations and probably therefore needs to be reformed; the EESC should be involved in this process. 3.10.
Citizen participation has been boosted by digital platforms.
The internet has allowed for the broad participation of civil society and the involvement of certain societal groups, particularly young people, that had remained far removed from such processes. 3.11.
However, while the digital sphere has helped to facilitate and increase participation, it also has its limitations.
Online consultations permit a range of opinions to be gathered, but fall short of providing real discussion. 3.12.
Creating sustainable future citizen panels requires a strong online component — a key element for transnational discussions engaging the largest possible number of citizens.
Based on the experience and lessons learned from CoFoE multilingual platform, the EESC proposes to create an improved multilingual online platform/mobile app.
This would allow for far greater participation than is possible with face-to-face events, provided that the online tool is designed to be accessible to as many citizens as possible.
Physical events remain an important complementary tool to online consultations, but should be limited to a reasonable number and highly targeted to current topics of horizontal interest.
Adequate resources should be allocated to the creation of such a state-of-the-art digital platform (3). 3.13.
The EESC believes that the issue regarding the representativeness of citizen contributions to the public debate must be raised, as well as the expertise needed to contribute.
Does the opinion of an association representing thousands of members hold the same weight as that of one sole citizen? 3.14.
The EESC reiterates that the added value of its opinions and recommendations stems from forging consensus among organised civil society, and building bridges between the diverging interests of the various societal organisations.
(2) (3)
See the report on the final outcome of the Conference on the Future of Europe.
As noted in the EESC study, ‘Making the EESC the facilitator and guarantor of participatory democracy activities, including structured dialogue with civil society organisations and citizens’ panels’ (2023), the demand for digitalisation is obvious, however, resources should be allocated to still enable physical participation.