| description: | This project is a successful proposal to an open call of the European Commission, DG Education and Culture, under which the Commission endeavours to test out new methods of engaging citizens with the European Union. This initiative marks clear interest of the EU in the participatory democracy methods as a part of the response to democratic deficit in the EU, especially in the wake of the negative referendums on the Constitutional Treaty. Now with the Irish “NO”, the need for greater citizens’ participation and therefore ownership of the European project has become even more pronounced. The participatory democracy methods have been already employed by the civil society contractors in the framework of Plan D pioneering projects, which have been carried out directly after the negative referendums in order to investigate citizens’ ideas on the future of Europe. This series of projects have enjoyed tremendous interest not only form the EU Institutions but also national governments and parliaments and civil society. The shortcoming of these projects was, however, a very weak follow-up from the EU Institutions. With the new call for Citizens’ Panels, there comes a clear commitment from the DG Education and Culture to follow up on the results of these deliberations.
The Treaty of Lisbon is now put on hold but nobody disputes “citizen orientation” of the participatory democracy article (Art. 8 B) that stipulates that “Institutions shall, by appropriate means, give citizens and representative associations the opportunity to make known and publicly exchange their views in all areas of Union action” and also that “the European Commission shall carry out broad consultations with parties concerned in order to ensure that the Union's actions are coherent and transparent”. The article also provides citizens initiative whereby over one million people from a significant member of member states can demand a legislative initiative from the European Commission. Regardless of concessions that will be made to Irish citizens, this article will stay in the new Treaty. Civil society should already prepare to come up with proposals on how to put flesh on this article and spell out its practical application. This should not be a top-down exercise and citizens should also have a say. At the present time we know very little about how, when and on what subjects citizens want to be engaged with the European Institutions. This is why partners in this project propose to explore what citizens want from the EU Institutions and this undertaking should provide invaluable information for future Europe-wide engagement processes.
OBJECTIVE
The project’s overarching objective is to use one of the participatory methods - the Citizens’ Panel - on the European scale in order to bring about operational recommendations from citizens on their engagement with the EU policy-making via participatory democracy methods.
METHODOLOGY
In the framework of the project there will be four national citizens’ panels in Germany, Bulgaria, Hungary and Latvia and one European citizens’ panel with participants selected form national panels and several other citizens recruited among those who already participated in similar projects in the past. Citizens will be deliberating on the use of participatory democracy methods on the European scale in order to determine:
The methodology adopted in this project proposal for citizens’ panels is inspired by Citizens’ Jury Handbook by The Jefferson Center, US (2004) and the above-mentioned Participatory Methods Toolkit – a practitioner’s manual by the European Foundation Centre (2005).
The countries selected for the national panels - Latvia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Germany - are broadly representative of the various regions identified in the Everyday Democracy Index work by Demos, the UK’s leading think-tank in this field. The Everyday Democracy Index is composite index of democracy indicators cross all EU countries and provides us with a useful and scientific tool to make our selection. The EDI uncovered ‘regional blocks’ when it came to the national state of democracy. For this reason it is not necessary to run citizens panels in all Member States in order to get viable results. There are four countries that cover different geographical areas and both high and low performance according to the EDI.
NATIONAL CITIZEN PANELS
In each national event, 50 citizens will engage in facilitated deliberations on how they want to make their voice heard in and be engaged in EU policy making. The group of citizens taking part in these identical one-day events will comprise:
• 45 randomly selected citizens, representing different regions, age groups, genders and occupations, and
• 5 citizens recruited from among those who already have experience of participative processes, including from EU-wide projects (such as European Citizens’ Consultations or Tomorrow’s Europe ).
The national citizens’ panels will be opened by a local MEP or similar public figure. Participants will be given brief, accessible information about how the European Union and its institutions currently work, as well as insights into some of the processes and practices previously used to engaged citizens at the European level. A panel discussion with experts on EU policy making and on citizen participation, together with citizens with experience of participative processes will bring this information to life for citizens.
At the heart of the events will be the citizens’ deliberations. In small, facilitated groups they will work to identify their shared wishes and ideas for participation in EU decision making. Participants will be able to deal with more than the one issue being dealt with in depth at their table by rotating with other groups, thus enabling agreement and ideas from the whole group to be identified and shared. Citizens’ ideas will be captured as they develop and change, before being agreed upon by the whole group and included in a national report of the event. In this way similarities and differences across the participating countries can be identified.
After the national citizens’ panels, this national report will be presented to civil society organisations and stakeholders during Civil Society Fora, during which civil society organisations and citizens will be able to discuss the issues. A report from these discussions will complement the citizens’ debates. Special attention will be attached to visibility of the project and dissemination of the results at this point, helping initiate a debate on the role and potential of civil society and citizen participation at national and European level, and on European issues.
EUROPEAN CONFERENCE
Following the national citizens’ panels and the civil society fora, the national recommendations will be compiled to identify commonalities and differences so that a set of European recommendations can be drawn up. These recommendations will be presented to the citizens who took part in the national citizens’ panels for approval before being discussed by an international expert panel. The panel will bring together experts and practitioners in participation from throughout Europe, and the following have been approached about their participation in the panel: Charles Kleinerman (European Movement International); Tanguy Van Loqueren (Fondation pour les générations futures); Eric Gall (Science-Cityoenne); Stefan Schäfers (King Baudouin Foundation); Mathieu Callame (Foundation pour le progress de l’homme); Stephen Pitam (Joseph Roundtree Charitable Trust); Henning Banthien (IFOK GmbH). Additional valuable actors in the field will also be identified and invited to participate, helping ensure a cross-section of views, wealth of experience and variety of international scope.
The Brussels Conference, which will take place in Brussels on the 26th of February 2010, will then bring together 5 citizens from each of the four national citizens’ panels, ten citizens who have taken part in other participative processes, the experts from the international panel and European policy- and decision-makers. In particular representatives from those Directorates General dealing with citizen participation, from the Parliament, the Council and other important bodies, notably the European Economic and Social Committee, will be invited.
The event aims to engage these three groups of participants in a facilitated dialogue with one another about the role and potential of citizen participation in European decision-making, helping finalise the citizens’ recommendations by enriching them with the considerations of both experts and policy makers. Citizens will present the key recommendations that have been drawn up, before additional input is provided by the other groups and deliberated amongst all participants. Such issues to be deliberated might include the potential for follow-up to citizen participation projects in the European Institutions, or the role of online participation in designing participative processes.
In this way the Brussels Conference not only serves as a working meeting, providing additional insights relevant for the final recommendations and report. It also acts as a prominent outreach opportunity, bringing together those working on participation and consultation in the European Institutions, academia and as practitioners and helping advance the issue of participation throughout Europe.
PRESENTATION OF THE RESULTS – THE IMPORTANCE OF TIMING
Thanks to the citizens’ panels on the national and then on the European level, as proposed in this project, citizens will have a unique opportunity to deliberate and propose their ideas on the democratic shape that the EU should take from 2010. This should create a major innovative input into the EU strategy (a new “democratic toolbox”) that will be presented to the new members of the European Parliament; the results will be delivered not long after the European elections in June 2009 and to the new College of Commissioners. The deliberations of citizens should also be a useful input into policy-making on national level. |
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