Citizen participation in the EU:
Learning from the European Citizens’ Panels
The first edition of Democracy Conversations, a series of interactive online events on topics most crucial for European democracy and its reform, launched the EU Democracy Observatory and discussed the EU’s current standing in terms of citizen participation after the first generation of European Citizens Panels on food waste, learning mobility, and virtual worlds completed their work. The paper titled ‘Assessing European Citizens’ Panels: Greater Ambition Needed,’ published by the EU Democracy Reform Observatory team, served as the basis for the discussion.
Have the Conference on the Future of Europe and the three Panels that followed fundamentally reshaped European democracy? What have we learned from the European Commission’s experiment with conducting citizens’ panels ahead of major legislative proposals? How have the Panels changed the way EU policy-making is conducted, and how transformative has their influence been? Is further institutionalization of the future Panels the next crucial step for citizen participation? Finally, how do the Panels fit into the overall structure and practice of policy deliberation in the EU? Where and how could their roles and functions be revised, improved, and expanded?
Democracy Conversations (1) with Colin Scicluna , Head of Cabinet of Vice-President Dubravka Šuica, European Commission; Kalypso Nicolaidis, Global Affairs at the School of Transnational Governance, EUI; Andrey Demidov, Project Manager, Bertelsmann Stiftung and Johannes Greubel, Head of the Transnationalisation Programme & Connecting Europe, European Policy Centre
Moderator: Jacki Davis, Meade Communications
