Debate: Citizens’ dialogues and citizens’ participation in EU decision-making
Date: MONDAY, 5 JULY 2021
Speaker: Dubravka Šuica
Language: EN

We have been using various methods and tools for some time. Since 2012, the Commission has promoted a format of citizens’ dialogues. These are open and direct dialogues between citizens and the European Commission. Sometimes senior Commission officials participate on specific issues. More than 2 000 dialogues have been organised across all Member States. I personally have participated in them and find them to be a valuable source of inspiration and exchange.  In the last year, due to the pandemic, citizens’ dialogues have moved entirely online. I’m looking forward to meeting and discussing with citizens in person again too.  Dialogues allow the European Commission to open the debate about Europe to more and more people throughout the Union. They have uncovered an increasing demand for events that enable people to be heard. Many different participatory formats of dialogues have taken place over the years. Workshops and other methods are frequently used to ensure the participation of all those attending the events.  However, citizens’ dialogues are primarily a listening exercise. This is where the Conference on the Future of Europe deepens citizens’ engagement. This unprecedented exercise in deliberative democracy at the European level has a built-in feedback mechanism. In the joint declaration the three presidents committed to following up on citizens’ input. Crucially, citizens will be able to see the outcome of their inputs.  The conference pan-European citizens panels as a key feature. A representative sample of 800 citizens will deliberate and come up with policy recommendations on the main topics addressed on the conference digital platform. These recommendations will feed into the overall conference discussions for follow up.  But we want to go a step further. We are therefore doing our utmost to mainstream citizens’ participation in various policy domains. The conference is not a panacea for all ills. It will not replace representative democracy but will reinforce it. And I want to highlight this today here in this hemicycle. One of the tangible tools engaging Europeans in the European Union policy-making for the last nine years is the European citizens’ initiative. It gives all European citizens the power to directly ask the European Commission to take action on matters they care about. On 30 June we have given a positive reply to the sixth successful initiative ‘End the cage age’ calling for prohibiting caging of various farm animals. This year legislative acts adopted in the follow up of two other European citizens’ initiatives – Right to water and Ban glyphosate – entered into application. This is evidence of the substantive legal and political impact of successful citizens’ initiatives.  But the real impact of the European citizens’ initiative goes further. Even initiatives that do not reach the final formal steps of the process can generate multiple impacts because the citizens’ initiative is first and foremost an agenda-setting tool. From the moment citizens start an initiative, they bring the issue they care about into the public space and to the attention of the Commission.  This year, we already registered six new citizens’ initiatives. We hope to receive many more in the future as we are further extending our information campaign – EU take the initiative – and the legal and practical advice offered by the forum on the European citizens’ initiative.  Honourable Members, dear Mr Scholz, the Commission will study your resolution and look at how to better involve citizens right from the early stages of policy-making. Structurally embedding citizen engagement in the European Union helps to address some of the frustrations and concerns of our citizens and contributes to bringing the European Union closer to them.