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The fourth edition of Democracy Conversations featured the conversation between the Portuguese Secretary of State for European Affairs Tiago Antunes and two of the Observatory experts – Senior Advisor at Bertelsmann Stiftung Dr. Dominik Hierlemann and Associate Director and Head of the European Politics and Institutions Programme at EPC Dr. Corina Stratulat.
Could integrating the existing instruments of EU citizen participation, such as the European Citizens Initiative (ECI) and European Citizens Panels (ECP), lead to greater citizen engagement, and what practical steps could be taken to achieve this synergy and enhance their impact?
Citizen participation is the instrument that could help the EU to confront ongoing permacrisis. However, EU and national decision-makers refrain from using its promising potential. Our new paper discusses why this is the case and what could be done to break through identified obstacles.
In light of a fundamentally changing geopolitical and geo-economic environment, including a potential enlargement to 30+ member states, more and more voices are calling for a reform of the European Union (EU). However, EU institutions and member states neither agree on the process nor the level of ambition when it comes to preparing the Union for the future.
Future enlargement is a historic opportunity for the EU to reform, and not only institutionally. It is also a chance to become a genuine Union of citizens by involving citizens differently, far earlier and more effectively. Our newly published policy brief discusses concrete steps to achieve that.
The Conference on the Future of Europe demonstrated that Citizens’ Panels can function as a working instrument of citizen participation in EU policy-making. The European Commission pushed the idea forward and organised the first European Citizens’ Panels on the topics of food waste, virtual worlds, and learning mobility between December 2022 and May 2023.
