Europeans should have more say when it comes to spending the EU budget, as a way to boost citizens' participation in EU policymaking, a panel of experts on democratic processes said during a Euractiv event on Thursday (22 February).
In recent decades, political institutions have witnessed a gradual erosion of trust among their constituents, a trend exacerbated by the economic and financial crisis.
The European Commission will release a revamped version of its Have Your Say online citizen’s engagement portal this month, Commission Vice-President Dubravka Šuica told Euractiv.
Download PDF
Participatory budgeting is a form of citizen participation in which citizens are involved in the process of deciding how public money is spent. Local people are often given a role in the scrutiny and monitoring of the process following the allocation of budgets.
Watch this video in Romanian. Participatory budgeting is transforming municipal decision-making in European cities, allowing citizens to propose and vote on local projects funded by community resources. While examples like Wroclaw, Poland, stands out as a success story, the …
Read this Special Report in Romanian or in Dutch. From the Conference on the Future of Europe to the European Citizens' Panels, in recent years, the EU institutions have been promoting a stronger participatory approach …
Read this article in Romanian. Young people’s voices should have a permanent role when considering legislation, the President of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) Oliver Röpke told Euractiv in an interview, adding that youth participation should …
The Dutch city of Rotterdam is teeming with initiatives aimed at ensuring citizens have a say in decisions that affect their life, from community-led projects to citizen participation schemes designed by the municipality. To learn more about the city’s participatory culture …
The implementation of the pandemic recovery funds remains mostly a top-down process, managed centrally and with limited attention to on-the-ground needs, according to local and regional authorities, who are calling out centralising tendencies in the management of EU funds.
Scotland is currently experimenting with a participatory budgeting system at the local level, a democratic tool which allows citizens to propose and vote on initiatives to be financed through local resources. But are citizens aware of this process and would they …
The European Parliament called on the EU to give European citizens a stronger voice and more instruments to influence the Union’s decision-making, as well as institutionalise participatory and deliberative processes.
The citizens of Thessaloniki, the second largest city in Greece, are increasingly feeling the need to take part in decisions affecting their life and their city. What role could citizen-led processes, such as participatory budgeting, play in bringing the inhabitants closer …
NGOs warned of “opacities” in the way the pandemic recovery funds have been designed and spent across a number of European countries, which have often locked citizens out from decisions affecting them.
Watch this video in Romanian. While most European citizens are aware of their right to elect their representatives from the local to the EU level, not all know about the participatory and deliberative initiatives which give citizens a …
Participatory budgeting - the democratic tool allowing citizens to decide how to spend a part of the municipal budget - has not yet been implemented in Thessaloniki, the second largest city in Greece. Yet, its inhabitants would be open to …
In Cluj-Napoca, Romania, both young and senior citizens can take part in participatory budgeting processes implemented by the municipality and local organisations. These processes allow residents to propose and vote initiatives which are then funded through the local budget. To learn …
Experts and lawmakers are making a case for a co-decision process allowing European citizens to have a voice in deciding how the EU budget is allocated, which could strengthen citizen participation and drive sustainable economic growth models across member states.
Read this article in Romanian. Youth activists are pushing for better recognition of youth's voices and needs in European policy-making while also making sure young people feel safe to participate, a key concern as next year's European elections …
European cities and their residents are increasingly using collaborative tools which allow inhabitants to participate in the design and management of city assets, a practice which, according to experts, can create more democratic societies and markets.
Ten European cities took part in a pioneering experiment to gather citizens’ ideas on how to address air pollution and present possible solutions to policy-makers, through a crowdsourcing process that experts believe could become part of the EU participatory toolbox.
EU citizens' panels introduced after the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) mean deliberative democracy experiments will continue at the EU level, but they need to better adapt to citizens’ expectations and become more inclusive, experts say.
Read this Special Report in Romanian or in Dutch. From co-designing urban spaces to crowdsourcing and permanent citizen assemblies, European cities, regions and institutions are experimenting with different forms of participation to give citizens a …
Since 2019, the German-speaking community in Belgium has carried out a deliberative experiment involving citizens in decision-making processes, a model that, according to the former head of the region’s parliament, could be adapted to other government levels.
The municipality of Cluj-Napoca, in the northwestern part of Romania, implements a process called participatory budgeting, which allows residents to propose and vote initiatives funded through the municipal budget. But are citizens informed about the process and what do they …
