Following the high voter turn-out in the 2019 European elections, there have been intensifying efforts for better citizen engagement in the EU decision-making process. The European Commission (EC) has proposed new initiatives to do so, among which is the upcoming Conference on the Future of Europe, while also improving existing tools already in place, such as the European Citizens’ Initiative. But as ECAS Executive Director, Assya Kavrakova, points out in a new article, it is the synergy between these, and other, methods that can create a “real European public space as a public sphere of dialogue, debate, and co-production of decisions not only for, but with, the citizens of Europe”.
Read the full article below, as published on the European Citizens’ Initiative Forum.
Design, Engage, Impact: The Improved European Citizens’ Initiative Leads the Way to a Stronger, Citizen – Centered European Union
As the Conference on the Future of Europe approaches, all the buzz in Brussels these days is about how to get citizens more engaged in policy making on the EU level. While it remains to be seen what would be agreed upon between the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council regarding the shape of the Conference, one thing is sure – the Conference should build upon the experience and the lessons learnt from previous and current initiatives of citizen engagement. This naturally puts the European Citizens’ Initiative, as the first trans-national instrument of participatory democracy which allows European citizens to shape the EU policy agenda and its multilingual online collaborative platform (the Forum), on the center stage…