Lokale und regionale Gebietskörperschaften im ständigen Dialog mit den Bürgerinnen und Bürgern
Opinion factsheet
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- Unionsbürgerschaft
Opinion number:
CDR-4989-2019
Status:
Verabschiedet
Objective
Citizens' participation between and beyond elections is a very important issue for the EU, as it is results, inter alia, from the proposal to launch the Conference on the Future of Europe aiming to bring together citizens, civil society and European institutions as equal partners in such important discussion and to increase citizens' engagement between and beyond elections.
The opinion on Local and regional authorities in the permanent dialogue with citizens develops further rationales and ways to involve citizens in policy-making, connecting different forms of citizen consultations that are already in place and institutionalising them at the EU level.
To do this, the opinion proposes to set-up a pan-European network which would gather and channel citizens' input from across Europe and, at the same time, serve as a hub where knowledge and experiences will be shared among those who organise or wish to organise citizens' dialogues. This CitizEN network should be launched during the Conference on the Future of Europe, with a view to becoming a permanent mechanism.
The opinion on Local and regional authorities in the permanent dialogue with citizens develops further rationales and ways to involve citizens in policy-making, connecting different forms of citizen consultations that are already in place and institutionalising them at the EU level.
To do this, the opinion proposes to set-up a pan-European network which would gather and channel citizens' input from across Europe and, at the same time, serve as a hub where knowledge and experiences will be shared among those who organise or wish to organise citizens' dialogues. This CitizEN network should be launched during the Conference on the Future of Europe, with a view to becoming a permanent mechanism.
Impact
The Follow up report of the European Commission (EC) on the CoR opinions adopted in the October 2020 Plenary Session was adopted on 24 March 2021. It welcomes the main findings and proposals of the opinion on Local and regional authorities in the Permanent dialogue with citizens, notably the idea of building an infrastructure to support citizen engagement, as possibly beneficial for citizens but also for institutions and organisations at EU, national, regional and local level. The report also addresses the links between the findings of the CoR opinion and the Conference on the Future of Europe, launched on 9 May 2021 and defined as a major pan-European democratic exercise.
The European Parliament adopted on 7 July 2021 a resolution on Citizens' dialogues and Citizens' participation in the EU decision-making (rapporteur: Helmut Scholz, DE/GUE NGL).
The resolution acknowledges and welcomes the CoR opinion on Local and regional authorities in the permanent dialogue with citizens. Besides several considerations on how citizens' participation can strengthen EU's legitimacy and increase citizens' trust, the resolution brings forward some proposals, consistent with the key messages of the CoR opinion:
• the establishment of a network of multi-level governments (in addition to EU-wide tools for citizens’ participation) that should serve as a transmission chain between European institutions and citizens;
• the introduction of citizens’ participation mechanisms for pilot projects, including ‘participatory budgeting’ to allow the shaping of the expenditure side of the Union’s budget and crowdsourcing to enable citizens to be involved in the co-creation of policies with EU decision-makers;
• the discussion, in the framework of the Conference on the Future of Europe (COFE), on possible mechanisms for the active participation of citizens in the consultation process in order to influence the annual Work Programme of the EC and the State of the Union address and sketches a possible structured mechanism to develop regularly on annual basis.
On 17 June 2022, following the COFE conclusions published on 9 May, the European Commission published the communication ''Conference on the future of Europe. Putting vision into concrete action'' - COM (2022) 4040. It presents the EC assessment of what is needed to follow up on the Conference on the Future of Europe's (COFE) proposals. It gives an overview of the next steps and of the methodology and it focus on how to embed participatory democracy into the EU policy and law making. The EC wishes to ensure that citizens are given a closer role in EU policy making, building on lessons learnt from COFE; inter alia, and in the same spirit of the CoR opinion adopted in 2020, it will consider new areas of action aiming in building capacity amongst regional and local actors and launching a new generation of decentralized citizens' dialogues.
The European Parliament adopted on 7 July 2021 a resolution on Citizens' dialogues and Citizens' participation in the EU decision-making (rapporteur: Helmut Scholz, DE/GUE NGL).
The resolution acknowledges and welcomes the CoR opinion on Local and regional authorities in the permanent dialogue with citizens. Besides several considerations on how citizens' participation can strengthen EU's legitimacy and increase citizens' trust, the resolution brings forward some proposals, consistent with the key messages of the CoR opinion:
• the establishment of a network of multi-level governments (in addition to EU-wide tools for citizens’ participation) that should serve as a transmission chain between European institutions and citizens;
• the introduction of citizens’ participation mechanisms for pilot projects, including ‘participatory budgeting’ to allow the shaping of the expenditure side of the Union’s budget and crowdsourcing to enable citizens to be involved in the co-creation of policies with EU decision-makers;
• the discussion, in the framework of the Conference on the Future of Europe (COFE), on possible mechanisms for the active participation of citizens in the consultation process in order to influence the annual Work Programme of the EC and the State of the Union address and sketches a possible structured mechanism to develop regularly on annual basis.
On 17 June 2022, following the COFE conclusions published on 9 May, the European Commission published the communication ''Conference on the future of Europe. Putting vision into concrete action'' - COM (2022) 4040. It presents the EC assessment of what is needed to follow up on the Conference on the Future of Europe's (COFE) proposals. It gives an overview of the next steps and of the methodology and it focus on how to embed participatory democracy into the EU policy and law making. The EC wishes to ensure that citizens are given a closer role in EU policy making, building on lessons learnt from COFE; inter alia, and in the same spirit of the CoR opinion adopted in 2020, it will consider new areas of action aiming in building capacity amongst regional and local actors and launching a new generation of decentralized citizens' dialogues.
Essential points
THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS
- Believes that bottom-up communication channels and participation instruments complement and strengthen representative democracy, as well as promote active subsidiarity, by giving citizens a greater say beyond and between elections.
- Welcomes the upcoming Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) and stresses that it should not be just a one-off fixed-duration process but an opportunity to rethink and reform the way the EU functions and is perceived by its citizens; therefore wishes to propose a mechanism for a permanent dialogue with citizens which could be tested during the CoFoE but would aim to introduce a long-term structural mechanism for citizen participation in EU policy-making, led by local and regional authorities, as the level of government closest to citizens and including a clear feedback mechanism.
- Proposes the setting-up of a pan-EU network based on voluntary participation – CitizEN, to act as a central resource for strategies, methodologies and instruments and to communicate both directly and indirectly, via existing initiatives with citizens across the EU on European issues and their impact on people.
- Suggests that the Network be launched during the CoFoE, with a view to becoming a stable and permanent infrastructure able to carry on with the follow-up on the work of the CoFoE and ensuring that citizens are kept well informed and can be involved in the monitoring, evaluation and assessment phases of the CoFoE.
- Expects, thus, that this ecosystem of participation methods would continually work to complement the institutional, official channels of communication and representation of European democratic institutions. It would not aim to substitute representative democracy but rather to enrich it with the instruments and means of deliberative democracy and, sometimes, direct democracy.