European Citizens Consultations: all articles

by Jessica Reed at the National UK ECC event

There is a couple of ECC related videos on youtube. But the best one is undeniably this one from Sweden, where the participants sing an European song of their own composition, accompanied by a man playing guitar. Better than the Eurovision if you want my opinion (...or is it?). For the most curious, I am also updating openDemocracy's flickR account with pictures of the event.

by Jessica Reed at the National UK ECC event

Today not only is the anniversary of the Rome Treaty, it is day two at the ECC event in York. The morning wake up call was, I am sure, hard for those of us who spent a good part of the night debating politics in the pub of York's University, but by 8 o'clock everyone was ready to go for another round of participative experimentation.

A couple of minutes ago Gerrit Rauws, president of the King Baudouin Foundation (the coordinator of the project on the European scale) presented the results of some the other countries' consultations which happened simultaneously over the week-end. 

So far, Austria is the only country which openly do not support the use of nuclear power as a source of energy and/or defense. Other countries, like the UK, failed to reach a clear consensus on the question, while others, like Italy, were slightly in favour of nuclear developement.

Sweden had by far the most sophisticated and detailed plan, with an emphasis on global aid (participants think 0,7 percent of the GPE should be allocated to aid so as to promote the spread of democracy).Italy seemed to be preoccupied by the well being of families and its children, who should be entitled to fulfill their potential.

by Jessica Reed at the National UK ECC event

The last deliberation just finished here in York, and this is the final statement for today, with a focus on immigration and the importance of EU's role worldwide:

We want a Europe that...

... promotes and assists socially responsible economic growth in all member states and globally, therefore preventing a 'brain drain'.  An EU that encourages economic migration, based on the needs and resources of each member state.  A Europe that is sympathetic to the needs of genuine asylum seekers, and suppports initiatives to promote integration with the host community.  European aid and development programmes should be delivered independently, and effectively solely based on a humanitarian agenda. A Europe that has a strong voice in global foreign policy, with an emphasis on peaceful and democratic solutions to problems, and which is at the forefront of addressing world poverty and promoting self-sufficiency. Promotes an EU wide police force and provides greater security to external borders to erradicate exploitation by people traffickers and illegal gang-masters.  

And on that note, I shall see you in the blogopshere tomorrow for for deliberative stories.

by Jessica Reed at the National UK ECC event

Here are the two final statements the participants have redacted (and agreed on!) so far: the first one about the environment, the second one about social welfare.

We want a Europe that...

...cares about energy and environment.  Where individual citizens and leaders take responsibility in their own lives and where the EU gives global leadership on this issue.  That educates its citizens and actively promotes renewable technologies and research.  Environmental issues should be on the core curriculum in all countries. Where energy provision is affordable, stable and tailored to local circumstances.

... offers the choice and opportunities for parent/carer to remain at home. Has a fair welfare system which encourages and empowers people to work, and which provides genuine training to prepare people for the future. That actively discourages discriminatory practices, and promotes tolerance in all aspects of life, that aims to eliminate poverty and homelessness. That recognises the value of the family unit in whatever form it may take. Instills in children the merits of hard work and honesty. That sets enforcable minimum standards within member states for public education, health, labour laws and social welfare services, but recognises cultural diversity and family and social welfare as a responsibility of individual member states.

by Jessica Reed at the ECC event

A couple of minutes ago I chatted with Geraldo Adriano Godoy de Campos, a University professor of International Relations in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Geraldo is an expert on participative democracy: he and Ollie Henman (the UK ECC co-ordinator) have worked extensively on city-wide participative deliberations in Brazil.

Their experience is fascinating and definitely inspiring, and I will try my best to summarise it here. Geraldo helped with the management of citizens' consultations in Sao Paulo - a town of more than 11 million inhabitants!- in regards to the city's investement budget. Open delibarations were organised in each different aeras of the city, where everyone could join and have their say. Consellors were then elected by the participants in a proportional fashion: each participant needed a certain number of votes to represent his neighbourhood. In a very affirmative-action fashion, women only needed 5 votes to become counsellors, same for sexual minorities (homeless and natives representatives needed zero).

The elected counsellors then agreed on a budget, which would run for a year. This is a lot of work and hope for every participants, but it seems to be worth it: the process puts decision-making in the hands of citizens who truly want to be engaged in their city's day-to-day budgeting decisions.

Sao Paulo recently elected a right-wing body of governance, which decided to put a stop to those successful experiments. Alas, the legal framework does not make it mandatory for cities to undergo such programs, which are difficult, costly, but most of all strip politicians of their power. However, in other cities like Porto Alegre, where such a system as been running smoothly for 16 years, the involvement of citizens in local politics is still going strong.  

Can this work at the European level? The first issue that comes to mind is one of accountability: in the absense of any legal framework regulating such forms of participative democracy, how to make sure politicians will listen?

by Jessica Reed at the National ECC UK event

This saturday finds me in York, attending the UK national event of the European Citizens Consultations. Anthony Barnett and I covered the first event of this exercise in participative democracy last October in Brussels – you can read about it here.

What are the ECC? It is, in principle, a very easy way to make the people's voices heard. Around one hundred randomly selected UK citizens are gathered in a room for a week-end to brainstorm about Europe's hot topics, with a focus on economic and social policies. The subjects were picked and approved by European citizens at the Brussels event, and can be reduced to three categories, which are:

• Energy and the Environment: The environmental and economic impact of Europe's energy use
• Family and Social Welfare: The social and economic conditions for Europe's families
• EU's global role & immigration: The EU's role in the world and the management of immigration.

As I speak, the participants are discussing the use of biofuels, how to reduce carbon emissions and other concrete ways to prevent climate change. As you can guess, the topics can cause great debate and disagreements, but the Consultations' goal is (if I believe the leaflet I was given at the beginning of the session) to give 'power to the people'.

An ambitious process? You bet. But according to the MEPs present today (Diana Wallis, Lib Dem; Linda McAvan, Labour; John Bowis, Conservative - you can't really accuse the organisers' of any political bias or favouritism-), European politicians really want to listen to the what the people have to say. As Wallis put it this morning: “politicans don't always know best”.

If they really don't, then let's hope they will listen.

You may have read our coverage of the European Citizens Consultations on our blog earlier this month; here is Claus Sørensen's view on the event as one of the DGs (director general) of Communication of the European Union.

By Claus Sørensen

When I woke up at 5:45 in Copenhagen very early Saturday morning it would be wrong to say I was extremely fit for fight. After having opened the EuroInfo Center Monday in Vienna, I returned to Brussels, then Friday on to Copenhagen to speak at a citizens gathering with former Danish Foreign Minister Uffe Ellemann Jensen. We had a great discussion with teachers and students to pin-point essential knowledge of the EU that school children and young adults should know about. Uffe having himself written EU history in his struggle to have, for example, the Baltic States join Europe, has not lost his touch and we had a lively meeting. After that, lunch with some key Danish opinion makers and in the evening happy birthday to my little brother.

Arriving in Brussels on the “Pyjamas” plane, I jumped into a car at Zaventem and rushed to Heysel, Hall 10, the Ambassadors room. What a buzz !! 200 European citizens had travelled to Brussels to spend time discussing Europe. They were sitting around 25 tables. Earphones on with translation. But often yelling their opinions in “Eurospeak” on where Europe should go! Great!

I had to speak to observers from universities, think tanks and citizen NGOs. Europeans, Americans and Asian colleagues had found their way to see what this was about. So what was going on? Well, we (the European Commission) at Margot Wallström’s intiative have launched 6 citizen dialogue projects to give life to Plan D on Democracy, Dialogue and Debate. It is about “Making your voice heard” as citizens.

The Commission cannot shoulder the debate on its own. We are dependent on Member States themselves, other EU institutions, the social partners, foundations, civil society representatives and of course the citizens themselves.  

I recalled during my introduction the Danish Parliament’s initiative called a “Citizens Agenda”. For two days, 400 citizens (representing young, old, doctors, greengrocers …everybody) talked EU with themselves. They identified, for example, that the EU should focus on fighting terrorism, fighting cross border crime, protecting the environment and maximising research and development. As a value-added the event was broadcast on national television, and the Prime Minister and other key decision makers came along and got the messages!

by Jessica Reed

 John Panaretos and I.

This weekend's event in Brussels was a truly rewarding experience as far as meeting experts on deliberative democracy was concerned.

I first met Oliver Henman, who is currently working for the Power Inquiry. We spent quite some time talking about deliberative processes this week end, as he asked participants about their impressions on the initiative. Having worked in Brazil on projects linked to deliberative initiatives, he is eager to see if the idea could be implemented on a European and National level. My initial feelings about the initiative were enthusiastic, but a little bit mixed: I am a great believer if 'everyday democracy' and deliberative citizens assemblies (like those organised in Porto Alegre), but can't help but think that while it might be truly efficient on a local-level (to answer specific communities' needs, to made decisions in a village or a neighbourhood) it is almost impossible to truly implement on a pan-national level. How can millions of European citizens truly have their say?

The ECC thinks it can be achieved by asking a panel of randomly chosen participants who are representative of their own country's social classes and culture. It sounds fair, but I had one concern when watching the group of participants this weekend: I could not see too many citizens from visible minorities groups at all. Out of the six English participants, all of them were white - and they were supposed to represent London, in all its diversity.

I also had the opportumity to briefly chat with Gerrit Raus, organiser of the event and president of the King Baudouin Foundation. When I asked him about how the idea for the ECC came about, he replied that the Foundation held a deliberate meeting of citizens from nine European countries to consider the questions raised by brain science.

By Jessica Reed in Brussels

I am still blogging from the European Citizens Consultation on its second and final day. As you may have read yesterday, the participants chose a list of three topics they considered essential for Europe´s well being. This morning they were asked to refine those suggestions by gathering in groups and construct short, simpe sentences that would summarise their feelings and ideas on the issues. I must say the end result is really impressive, as the groups have brought those topics to life with a real, optimistic, inspiring vision. After just one day of intensive brainstorming, those 200 European citizens from eclectic backgrounds and different experiences, language and culture have agreed on core topics that they demand be treated seriously by our leaders - not only for us, but also for our future generations. Now let´s just hope those voices will truly be heard not only at the National Consultations which will take place in a few months, but also heard by policy makers and European MPs alike.

Here are the participants´suggestions:

I. Environement and energy. We want a Europe that...

... is a role model for a clean, sustainable and independent world
… provides information and communication to all citizens concerning the enviromental impact of all products and produtions
… promotes sustainable development by being at the forefront of a global quest for alternative, clean, and renewable sources of energy to ensure that today's world exists for tomorrow's generations
… presents and produces a positive, renewable energy with low pollution content independently from non-EU states 

By Jessica Reed in Brussels

A couple of minutes ago here at the ECC event participants have just narrowed down their choices to three main topics they would like Europe to deal with:

- Environment and Energy

- Social Welfare and Family

- Global Role, Outside Borders, Immigration.

More tomorrow - for now I am off to downtown Brussels to enjoy food and drinks with my European counterparts...

(The list also includes, in order: Education and Study, Economy, Agriculture and Food, Peace and Security, Integration and Enlargement, Policy making and Citizen communication and Science and research).

By Anthony Barnett in Brussels

While Jessica was down here in the hall where we are now, talking to the participants of this Citizens Consultation, I was upstairs in the session for Observers.

There were over a 120 observers, and the session was opened by Luc Tayart de Borms, who runs the King Baudouin Foundation, who inspired the whole idea. He introduced four speakers: Tony Venables, Jacki Davis, Pierangelo Isernia and the most interesting, Claus Sorensen ­ who is the DG of Communications in the EU. What does this mean? It means that he is the Director General, i.e the Head of this section of the Commission that runs communication policy for Europe. There are about a dozen DGs who run the EU as a whole. Jessica thinks it is quite a good job, but she is not asking for it herself (yet).

Sorensen is an engaging Dane who is wearing a bright green shirt. He promised that he would deliver a synthesis of this citizens process to a meeting the European commissioners in June.  He said that the process is not being designed to circumvent representative democracy, but an addition to it. Like other speakers, he emphasized that this is a great experiment.

By Oli Henman of the Power Inquiry at the ECC.

As the Constitution fell apart across Europe last year, even the European political structure realised there was a problem- who does this process belong to? The European Citizens´ Consultation seeks to find some answers. Having arrived last night, I spent the morning with the UK participants getting to know their concerns and  working out what they saw as priorities. The expectations were relatively low but the feeling was upbeat- throughout the morning there were presentations and a great sense that this is something unusual, not everyday that EU Commissioners ask the citizens of all the states to come and deliberate on policy! 

by Jessica Reed (still reporting from the European Citizens Consultation)

Daniel Debomy is the director of OPTEM, the opinion search agency who was in charge of selecting the ECC participants throughout Europe. He gave a speech, en francais, about "what Europeans think of Europe?", and narrowed the whole, gigantic problematic to a couple of main issues - he only had ten minutes to give his speech!

- Is there such a thing as a European identity? Debomy says that whenever Europeans are asked this qustion they often look startled and disconcerted, thinking about the differences between our countries and cultures first and foremost. But then a few common traits come to mind: a common history, a common love for heritage and culture, a dep seated respect for the environment and diversity, and (you saw it coming) a growing gap between the "North American" perspective and ours.

- Common expectations: All europeans are worried when facing the challenges of globalization, and usually feel protective of the social European model.

By Jessica Reed in Brussels

At lunchtime I immersed myself in the group of European citizens taking part in the Consultation initiative, and chatted with Stephane Rebaudo, a french student from Paris here for the week end as a participant.

oD Today: Hi Stephane, can you tell us how you ended up being an active participant of the European Citizens Consultations?

Stephane: I received a phone call a couple of months ago, and was asked about some of my opinions, whether or not I belonged to a political party, what were the latest books I had read, things like that (1). I guess I qualified for the Consultation since I am now here!

Can you describe today’s activities so far?

I am sitting in a conference room, at a table with three other French people, three Cypriots and a translator. We answer questions thanks to a digital box at our disposition, and discuss which topics and hot issues we would like European Institutions to take care of. So far my table has brought up the topics of European justice, energy, taxes and immigration, which we feel are crucial to the current European debate.

By Jessica Reed in Brussels

25 different countries, 25 different cultures- you shouldn’t be surprised if nobody laughs at your jokes! - a participant of the ECC.

After the negative outcome of last year’s European referenda, the Union’s future looked a bit grim. What emerged was an undisputable need to (re)connect Europe with its citizens, in order to fix the ´democratic deficit´ the Union seems to face. Enters the European Citizens Consultation, a pan-European event which is taking place this weekend in Brussels. Its main intent is astoundingly simple: to gather 200 randomly-chosen European citizens in a room to hear them debating about what kind of Europe they want to live in. It is a bit of deliberative polling with a dash of direct democracy as an attempt to establish a much needed international bottom-up dialogue by its people, for its people – but also its policy-makers “Eurocrats”.

The event acknowledges that Europe may scare some of its citizens away: its preoccupations often seem far away (metaphorically and geographically, after all only the European Parliament is truly elected) from its inhabitants´ daily worries. But new impulses from the public itself can rally global understanding and support to the "European dream".

So here I am in Brussels for the week-end, blogging from a conference-room filled with European citizens armed with headphones (for translation), laptops (to vote interactively) and a good wireless connection (rare).