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European Citizens Consultation 2009
Method(s) Used
Name of person who posted the project:Karin Gavelin (Involve)
Location of project:
Date when the project started:2008
Date when the project ended/project ongoing:2009
Background to project:In the run-up to the 2009 Euro-elections, the European Citizens? Consultations 2009 (ECC 2009) gave EU citizens a voice in the debate over how to respond to the current economic and financial crisis by providing a platform for pan-European dialogue on the challenges facing the EU.Purpose of project:ECC 2009 has six objectives:--Promoting interaction between citizens and policy-makers: fostering debate between citizens and policy-makers in the run-up to ? and after - the European elections; --Citizens as policy advisors: feeding citizens? opinions into the political debate at both European and national levels; --Citizen participation as a policy instrument of the future: mainstreaming trend-setting and long-term oriented citizen consultations at the European level; --Closing the gap between the EU and its citizens: bringing the EU closer to citizens and citizens closer to the EU; --Increasing the general public?s interest in the EU: generating substantial media coverage of the dialogue between the EU and its citizens; --Partnerships in participation: deepening European co-operation within existing civil society networks and their respective partner networks, as well as e-participation providers Project activities:In the first phase of the project, some 200,000 European citizens visited the online fora launched in each of the EU?s 27 Member States in December 2008 to generate public debate and ideas on what role the EU can play in shaping our economic and social future in a globalised world. These ideas were then fed into the national consultations which took place in all 27 Member States over three weekends in early 2009. At these events, which were attended by a total of 1,600 randomly selected citizens, the participants worked to produce ten recommendations for action at EU level at each national event. All the participants were then asked to vote on all the recommendations generated by these events to choose their top 15 recommendations.Some 150 citizens who took part in the national events then travelled to Brussels for the European Citizens? Summit on May 10-11 to hand over and discuss these recommendations with top EU policy-makers, including the European Commission and Parliament Presidents and the EU Presidency. Project results:As well as feeding into the debate over how to respond to the global economic crisis, ECC 2009 also provided timely and relevant input for policy-makers as the EU institutions begin work on a post-2010 successor to the Lisbon Agenda. Additional regional outreach activities are planned in the autumn of 2009, with a particular focus on the MEPs newly elected in June 2009, to ensure that the results of the consultations are disseminated and debated more widely.ECC 2009 is part of an ongoing process to further develop citizen participation and consultation mechanisms. It builds on the success of ECC 2007, which established a new model for citizen participation through the first pan-European participatory project to involve citizens from all 27 Member States of the EU in the debate on the future of Europe. At the heart of the ECC09 process were randomly-selected participants, representing the diversity of the population, providing valuable qualitative input into the EU debate by discussing the issues and generating ideas for action themselves. This complements and adds to the information provided by traditional opinion polls, consultation processes with organised stakeholder groups etc. Contact details:The UK partner for ECC 09 was Involve (www.involve.org.uk). For more information contact Laurie Waller on 020 7632 0118 / laurie@involve.org.ukTo read more about the project see the ECC09 website (which also includes links to the individual countries' websites): http://www.european-citizens-consultations.eu |
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