A push for European Identity in Europe´s cities and regions

Together with around 70 invited politicians, citizens and experts from local and regional governments as well as from EU institutions and bodies, we discussed and drafted recommendations for the future design of citizen participation in Europe. Following up on the landmark European democracy experiment “Conference on the Future of Europe” and its recommendations on a permanent European Citizens´ Assembly, the working conference focused on how the views of ordinary citizens from all parts of Europe can be better incorporated into European policy-making to make citizens´ participation a permanent reality. The following questions were discussed:

• What are the lessons learned from the Conference on the Future of Europe for a better link between participatory and representative democracy and citizens’ assemblies?
• How should we connect local citizens’ assemblies to EU-level debates?
• What do regions and cities need to advance citizen participation in an EU context? How can the European Committee of the Regions contribute to this process?

In the opening debate, Christophe Rouillon, Mayor of Coulaines, France, President of the PES group in the CoR said: "The Conference on the Future of Europe sent a clear message: we have to dare more democracy! This means strengthening both representative and participatory democracy. We, European cities and regions, are best qualified to prepare citizens for a stronger say on social, environmental and health policies. We can build on our experiences with citizens' participation and also be the labs of democratic experimentation. We are ready and motivated to get the European democratic project to a new stage!"

In three parallel workshops the participants discussed in a world café format the benefits of citizens´ participation at different levels of democracy, the involvement of regions and cities in a European participatory process, and capacity building and networking for citizens’ participation. Here are the main recommendations from the workshops.

Vasco Alves Cordeiro, First Vice-President of the European Committee of the Regions concluded the working conference. The Vice-President emphasized that the Conference on the Future of Europe showed us the necessity to get out of the ‘legitimacy trap’, namely, to stop thinking that representative and participatory democracy are inherently contradictory and cannot exist next to each other. Elected representatives and citizens who participate via other mechanisms are not in opposition but are working together via different means towards the same goals. However, at the present time, in order to advance citizen participation and increase its acceptance, all levels of democracy should tackle three major challenges: The right conditions to motivate people to participate need to be created; it should be clear from the beginning of the process to the citizens how far they are empowered;  processes must be accountable of what to do with the citizens´ recommendations citizens need to have a clear idea of what will happen with their suggestions and recommendations; and it is the primary task for politicians to clearly communicate this.

He closed by stating that local and regional authorities already have an interesting record in citizens´ participation and will play a key role in addressing these challenges.

Between April 2021 and February 2022, the project the “From local to European” was carried out by the CoR and the Bertelsmann Stiftung – together with 23 cooperation partnerships from 67 European cities and regions. The latter conducted citizens’ dialogues with around 200 politicians and 2 000 citizens, which contributed to the Conference on the Future of Europe with more than 400 concrete proposals on the future of Europe. The five key results of the project are:

1. The project led to high-quality citizens’ dialogues. Over 90% of the citizens and over 90% of the organisers rated the citizens’ dialogues as very good or good. All initiators stated that the support provided by the project had improved their own Citizens’ Dialogues.
2. Expertise for good citizen participation was firmly established. All initiators rated the quality principles as useful, regardless of their previous knowledge of citizen participation. They were applied in practice. It was only random selection, as a little-known instrument, that had some implementation issues.
3. Participatory democracy in the cities and regions has been given a lasting boost. All project partners stated that they would apply the quality principles again in the future. In addition, all events were supported by about a total of 200 politicians, who discussed with the citizens their proposals and promised to take concrete action.
4. Citizens want to be more involved in European issues. The evaluation of the citizens’ assessments and the approx. 400 proposals made by citizens clearly show that European citizens want more citizen participation at the European level.
5. United in diversity: the proposals of European citizens are similar. Around 400 developed proposals show: European citizens want more out of Europe and more unified solutions at EU level. Furthermore, it is evident that citizens not only often discuss the same issues, but also often arrive at similar proposals for the future of Europe although these concern different countries.