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. It came up with very intelligent and helpful responses and they felt that if it could work for such a difficult and abstract issue, then it should be able to work for the future of the EU.
Finally Anthony introduced me to John Panaretos who he had met at this summer’s Symi seminar help by the Greek Political leader George Papandreou. Panaretos is an expert on deliberate processes and worked with Jim Fishkin of the centre for Deliberate Democracy in Stanford on the design of a deliberate poll to select the PASOK Party candidate for the Mayor of Maroussi, a city outside Athens (the elections there will be held next Sunday). John will be running the national deliberations in both Greece and Cyprus. He told us he was going to make sure that the participants were more representative of opinion across the board, and that rural views as well as urban ones would be included.
