HOW THE PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY TOOLBOX

HOW THE PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY TOOLBOX

CAN MAKE THE EUROPEAN UNION
CAN MAKE THE EUROPEAN UNION
LESS REMOTE FROM CITIZENS
LESS REMOTE FROM CITIZENS

This report is supported by:

 Copyright: ECAS 2010
Design by Alicia Karpetsky

2
 TABLE OF CONTENTS:

5 INTRODUCTION

7 THE NEED FOR AND THE ADVANTAGES OF

CITIZEN PARTICIPATION

14 WHAT TECHNIQUES OF CITIZEN PARTICIPATION

ARE AVAILABLE?

24 WHAT HAS BEEN THE EXPERIENCE SO FAR

WITH CITIZEN PARTICIPATION AT THE EUROPEAN
LEVEL?

33 HOW COULD A CITIZEN PILLAR BE BUILT INTO EU

POLICY-MAKING?

45 CONCLUSIONS

3
4
 INT R ODU CT ION

This report is a follow-up to the European Citizens’ Panels

project involving ECAS, partner organisations and citizens in
four EU Member States.1 Randomly selected citizens,
representative of the national population, came together in
citizens’ panels to discuss how they would like to be involved
in EU decision-making. There, they
discussed with both each other and
with experts what formats and on
what issues of EU policy-making they
would like to be consulted. They also
considered what information they needed and other issues
important for effectively involving citizens in policy-making.
After meetings in the four countries, a European event took
place on 26 th February 2010 in Brussels, bringing all the
citizens together. This final event also involved citizens from
other projects, experts and representatives of the EU
Institutions. In parallel, ECAS organised an expert panel
involving practitioners, the partner organisations, experts
and academics to help ‘test’ the citizens’ recommendations
and to identify opportunities for action.

To our knowledge, this is the first time that citizens

themselves have been asked to consider how best
participatory democracy deliberations should
be organised rather than specific issues.
Though the issue might appear theoretical, the
debates and the recommendations drawn up by
the citizens show that they can indeed grasp
complex or abstract issues – and, more
importantly, that they are enthusiastic to be involved in EU
decision-making in a constructive and transparent manner.

1
ECAS is grateful to the Europe for Citizens programme, the Economic and
Social Committee and the Rowntree Charitable Trust for their support for
this project, and to all those involved in drafting this report. The four national
panels took place in Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary and Latvia.

5
At the same time, this report draws on a number of other
sources. Prior to the European Citizens’ Panels project, the
European Commission organised a workshop for its own
services, which involved a number of external experts
considering the results of the first series of
European participatory democracy
projects2. This report also draws on the
discussions held there and, where applicable,
on the extensive evaluation report 3. The
recommendations from citizens, experts, and
Commission officials all point in the same direction.

This report is structured into four parts:

- First, there is a summary of the background and

benefits offered by citizen participation. It sets out
the institutional context at the European level and
the advantages for the European Institutions of
building a citizens’ pillar in decision-making.

- Secondly, a brief selection of the different

participatory democracy techniques available is
given. These range from large-scale and
technologically sophisticated approaches, such as
the European Citizens’ Consultations method, to
more discreet and intense consultative mechanisms
such as citizens’ juries. This is a fast-moving state
of the art system, particularly with the development
of e-participation and social networks. The European
Commission should create a network of experts and
practitioners to identify the most important

2
Citizens ‘consultations “Learning from the past, looking towards the future”
workshop on the 27th November 2009, organised by the Directorate General
for Communication.
3
Evaluation of Plan D/Debate Europe projects by Eureval, Matrix and Rambøll -
Management

6
 innovations relevant for its work, and adapt these
tools into processes for its use.

- Thirdly, there is a review of the achievements so far

with citizens’ participation projects at the
European level, under the Commission’s
‘Plan D for Democracy, Dialogue and
Debate’ and its ‘Europe for Citizens’
programme. European participatory
projects have been shown to work when
reviewed across a number of dimensions
and that they have an important, valuable and
beneficial role to play in EU decision-making.

- Finally, there is a proposal for building on the first

experimental wave of European projects with a more
strategic approach, using guidelines and a checklist
for building a citizens’ pillar in EU policy-making.

The report ends with five recommendations for the

next steps to be taken to turn, an experiment into a
strategy.

I. T HE NEED F OR AND T HE ADVANT AG ES OF CIT IZ EN

PAR T ICIPAT ION

There is no doubt that the Commission’s own evaluation of

participatory projects and the European
Citizens’ Panel project both came at the
right time: A new European Parliament was
elected in June 2009 and a new European
Commission took office in February 2010;
policies are being revised, both because of
these institutional changes and because of
the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. An

7
important aspect of the Treaty is that it incorporates the
Charter of Fundamental Rights. In Article 11, the Treaty
introduces the principle of participatory democracy:

Article 11

1. The Institutions shall, by appropriate means, give citizens

and representative associations the opportunity to make
known and publicly exchange their views in all areas of Union
action

2. The Institutions shall maintain an open, transparent and

regular dialogue with representative associations and civil
society.

3. The European Commission shall carry out broad

consultations with parties concerned in order to ensure that
the Union’s actions are coherent and transparent.

4. Not less than one million citizens who are nationals of a

significant number of Member States may take the initiative
of inviting the European Commission, within the framework of
its powers, to submit any appropriate proposal on matters
where citizens consider that a legal act of the Union is
required for the purpose of implementing the Treaties.

The European Parliament and Council of Ministers are giving

priority to negotiating the Commission’s draft regulation on
citizens’ initiatives (COM(2010)119 final) to implement
conditions for the one million signatures under Article 11.4.
However, no one thinks this is the only way to involve citizens
in European policy-making. This report focuses on other ways
to do so.

8
Amongst the advantages claimed for citizens’ deliberations
are, importantly, offering different tools with which to bridge
the gap between citizens and policy-makers:

- Participatory democracy techniques can contribute

to overcoming a ‘two-speed Europe’ for citizens.
Results of referenda and European elections show
that important sections of the population see
themselves as outsiders when it comes to Europe,
European issues and European integration. This is
expressed not least in high rates of abstention, ‘no’
votes in referenda and growing nationalism and
euroscepticism4.

- Citizens’ deliberations are a contribution to

democracy because they are a form of active
citizenship. They create conditions of access to
information and expertise and
enable people, in ideal conditions
of participation, to engage with
policy-making. They do not seek
to replace the right and duty of
elected representatives and
the executive to take decisions
– they seek to complement it, enabling better
decisions to be made with greater acceptance and
stronger implementation.

- In other cases, the motive for involving citizens is for

the value of their input for better regulation and
implementation. Politicians are conscious of the
need to ‘test the waters of public opinion’, and are
recognising the need to do so at an early stage.

4
See ECAS’ ‘25 Questions and Answers on What Way Out of the
Constitutional Impasse?’ that explores the socio economic splits between
urban and rural areas, high and low income, and euroscepticism among young
people.

9
 There is often a very fine dividing line between public
acceptance and rejection, especially when complex
and controversial issues are at stake – issues such
as scientific and technological choices, resource
decisions or ones with as yet unknown implications
and effects.

- Indeed, a win-win situation can be achieved in the

following central ways:

 Citizens are the first to benefit because

they actively engage in the democratic
process. Few turn down the invitation to
participate in a debate about Europe, and
would never have expected such an
invitation to do so from this particular
source. As the participants of the European
Citizens’ Panels themselves said when
about their motivation to participate, they
are often initially sceptical, but become
more enthusiastic as discussions get under
way: “Feelings included hope and
surprise, feeling positive about the
process, and curious as well as
[…] anxious […]”5 The
opportunity for debate with
people from all walks of life and
people from their own and
other countries, often goes
hand-in-hand with the positive realisation
that there are numerous possibilities for
defining common European positions and
agendas, and identifying shared experiences
and expectations.

5
Conclusions of the Citizens’ Panels discussed at the final European event on
26 February 2010 in Brussels.

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 For some citizens, including those involved in
the European Citizens’ Panels, these are
quite literally life-changing experiences. They
lift them out of their traditional attitudes
that Europe is not interested in its
citizens, and that they, the
citizens, cannot change anything.
As one participant of the
European Citizens’ Consultations
said: “I became interested in Europe
when Europe became interested in
me”. More importantly, these
effects are felt beyond the small
circle of those directly involved in
participatory projects. They talk to family
and friends about their experiences,
colleagues and the media, and therefore,
indirectly, reach a far wider circle.

 Officials and politicians gain new insights

from the process. At the very least, the
qualitative and, more active approach of
citizen deliberation will teach them more
than opinion polls ever can. These passive,
static snap-shots of opinions, and choices
amongst pre-determined options at a given
point in time, often leave many questions
unanswered and the finer points and trade-
offs unexplored. To an increasing extent, EU
policy-makers face issues which are complex,
controversial or divisive, and which are
unpredictable in terms of public opinion.
These are often important and emotive
issues for citizens, especially if they are
able to see the link between the policy under
discussion and their own situation, that of

11
 their family or immediate neighbourhood,
making their inclusion in the policy-making
process increasingly central for its
success. Participatory democracy
techniques have shown that citizens are
often able to open the eyes of experts and
politicians to new ways of looking at familiar
problems, and changing the perspective, so
that solutions are found.

For the EU Institutions, hampered by their distance

– both perceived and real – from citizens, and where
the distance between policies and citizens’ everyday
lives are even more abstract than at a national and
regional level, the gains are all the greater.

- The European Commission is not elected

and therefore has an institutional interest in
increasing its legitimacy by relating directly to
citizens and civil society. As the initiator of
legislation and policy, the Commission has the prime
function among the Institutions for citizens’
consultations. This is also recognised by Article 11
of the Lisbon Treaty with citizens’ initiatives
addressed to this Institution. It would be a strong
starting point for participatory democracy
deliberations. Inevitably, Commission policy-making
draws on expert committees and is
under pressure from lobbies with
vested interests. This does not
guarantee proposals in the European
public interest. Using the lay citizen
expertise generated by the powerful
techniques available can help to achieve such a
balanced outcome.

12
- The European Parliament forces a paradox of
declining voter participation in European elections
which fell to below 50% on average in the June 2009
elections, whilst its actual powers are increasing. In
the European Citizens’ Panels project, emphasis was
placed by citizens on the role of MEPs
and the importance of engaging with
the European Parliament – and not
just during elections. When agreeing
on legislation with the Council of
Ministers, it is rightly the ‘citizend’
and the ‘end-user’s’ perspective, which
are stressed by the European
Parliament. Citizens’ deliberations run
by this Institution could therefore
strengthen its position in negotiations with the
Council, and increase its legitimacy. In the European
Citizens’ Panel project, people were both critical of
the lack of sense of any real European campaign
during the elections, and recommended a much
closer interaction with their MEPs between
elections.

- The Council of Ministers often appears the most

remote of the EU Institutions, as if citizens have no
place in the meetings of heads of government or
ministerial meetings. Being aware of this, and of the
need to involve citizens more with European policy
issues, some governments – particularly when they
hold the Presidency of the Council – do organise civil
society events and outreach activities. These
however, are often one-way information events
limited to representatives of organised civil society.
These welcome tentative beginnings should be built
upon by the Council to help anchor the work being
done in both in the home/host country and across
Europe.

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II. W HAT T ECHNIQU ES OF CIT IZ EN PAR T ICIPAT ION
AR E AVAILABLE?

This brief summary of techniques, drawn from different

sources, shows that depending on the purpose of a citizen
consultation exercise, a technique is bound to be available 6.
Some are large-scale, involving thousands
of people over a brief period in time such as
a weekend; others are small-scale but
more time consuming for those involved. In
some processes, the emphasis is placed
on interaction among citizens to
encourage active citizenship or community cohesion; in
others, the dialogue between citizens and experts is a key
benefit. There are also differences in the extent to which the
techniques are based solely on face-to-face communication
and debate among citizens, or are able to incorporate and
accommodate advanced information and communication
technologies so as to reach larger numbers of participants.
Random selection of participants is also a feature of many of
the techniques highlighted here.

The selection of the appropriate technique or mix of

techniques depends on what outcome is to be
achieved. In addition, such a consultation should not
be seen as a stand-alone activity. It must be a
transparent process, with clear information for all
involved about where to key-in with other decision-
making and implementation processes and what will
happen with the outcomes of the process. This was

6
IFOK GmbH consultation contribution as part of the European Citizens’
Panels; Danish Board of Technology; INVOLVE publication; ‘Governance of the
European Research Area: The Role of Civil Society’; ‘Citizens as partners –
OECD Handbook for governments on information, consultation and public
participation in policy-making’; ‘Participatory and deliberative methods
toolkit. How to connect with citizens - A practitioner’s manual’ presented at
the EFC annual General Assembly, May 2006 Brussels.

14
one of the central recommendations and key demands made
by citizens from all countries involved in the European
Citizens’ Panel, when asked what would motivate them to
take part and what was important for them in such
participative processes: “…good feedback from the EU about
how it will use, accept or reject the citizens’ ideas…”7

Although, this does not apply to all.

The selection of techniques below is neither comprehensive

nor exhaustive. The selection serves to highlight a wide
variety of techniques already available, seeking to give a feel
for what citizens’ consultations can ‘look like’.

European Citizens’ Consultations

Citizens’ Consultations are based on the model and method

developed by America Speaks, the 21 st Century Town Hall
Meeting. They are structured, dialogue events which involve
facilitation both in plenary amongst all participants, and at
table level where participants sit in small working groups.
Citizens work at tables and in plenary to deliberate and
develop answers to a question. They are
supported in this by both professional
facilitation and through the use of modern
technology, such as electronic voting, to
help the group arrive at a consensus. As
deliberations are professionally facilitated
and take place in small working groups –
typically 8-12 people – it is possible for every citizen to
become involved in the discussion and to make their voice
heard. A central editorial team collates the citizens’ inputs
from their tables and these are voted on in the plenary,
before the results are then discussed in the next dialogue

7
Conclusions of the Citizens’ panels

15
step. Creative elements or shared activities can also be
integrated into the method, ensuring that the event is both
fun and productive! Experts and other stakeholders can also
be involved in the process. The format also lends itself to the
integration of online elements, thus enabling it to reach a far
greater number of people than those attending the
conference – despite, the number of
participants varying from 100 to
2,000 participants at any one given
event. In addition, European Citizens’
Consultations are uniquely placed to
enable deliberations across the
boundaries of language and geography. The use of bilingual
tables with the attendant facilitation and interpretation
support enables a truly European debate to take place.

European Citizens’ Consultations are able to generate high-

quality, detailed and very concrete
results – often in the form of
recommendations for action. They
energise participants by giving them a
feeling that their voice has been heard
and they have made a contribution to
the results being developed. Citizens’ Consultations are
particularly well suited for situations where a large number of
people should be involved in preparing a political decision.

Additional benefits of this format also include:

- A visually attractive event, good for drawing media
attention;
- Complex issues can be dealt with;
- A variety of views can be accommodated; and
- As everyone’s voice is heard and part of the shared
solution, a number of trade-offs in deliberation are
done away with.

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Citizens’ juries

This is a method of obtaining informal citizen input into

decision-making and in particular to explore values. The
process is very different from the large-scale citizens’
consultations and aims at acquiring informed
recommendations about a specific policy or decision problem
from a group of representative citizens. The jury is composed
of 12-24 randomly selected citizens who deliberate the
evidence presented to them and arrive at
a shared conclusion or recommendation.
This, they do on a previously fixed set of
questions. A professional facilitator
supports the jury whilst citizens
autonomously deliberate the question.
They have access to experts that represent all relevant
positions from whom they ‘hear evidence’ and whom they can
cross-examine. On the strength of this information, the jury
then develops recommendations for action. Often an advisory
committee gives advice concerning the selection of the
experts and the questions to be asked.

Citizens’ juries lend themselves to situations where

consensus is being sought on a critical or controversial issue,
and it is important that sufficient time is given to the jury to
‘get to grips’ with the issue. The outcome of the process is a
recommendation for action from the citizens; based upon the
evidence they have been given. This is often an expression of a
preference between a small numbers of predetermined policy
options.

Citizens’ juries are a low-cost approach to participation by

lay people, which generates consensus. They can help
increase the legitimacy of decisions or policy proposals and
have the benefit that citizens have time to inform
themselves and develop informed opinions and decisions.

17
Consensus Conferences

Consensus Conferences were originally developed in Denmark

as a way to assess the impacts of various technologies,
making it a well-suited and tested method by which to find out
peoples’ views about a new technology and to place that in a
social context.

During a Consensus Conference, a random selection of people

– usually 10 to 30 lay people – are asked to draw up
questions about an often-controversial issue. They then pose
these questions to experts and draw up recommendations as
a joint report. The citizens are
autonomous in framing the problem and
selecting the experts – they steer the
dialogue themselves and are at the heart
of the process. They choose the
questions, the experts and draw their own
conclusions. The final report does not, as
the name would suggest, have to necessarily represent a
consensus – citizens can develop a number of contradictory
or differing positions. The process usually takes three
months and the citizens prepare the conference over two
weekends. The conference, in which the experts are quizzed,
and the writing and presentation of the report, usually take
four days.

The format enables citizens to grapple with controversial

issues in a deliberative,
structured way and, because
participants set the agenda,
define the problem and steer the
dialogue; they really are at the
heart of the method. However,
there is no guarantee that they
will necessarily arrive at a
coherent set of positions on which action can be taken.

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Deliberative Polling®

Deliberative Polling® is a method which measures a group’s

changes in opinion, and seeks to draw conclusions about
public opinion on the strength of these changes. It is
therefore a way of complementing traditional opinion polls. A
representative panel of citizens are asked a series of
questions before being invited to a one or two-day dialogue
event. There, they receive information
materials and discuss the issue in small
groups. The participants engage in
dialogue with competing experts and
political leaders based on questions they
develop in small group discussions with
trained facilitators. At the end, they are
asked the same questions as they were at the beginning so
as to see how, if at all, their answers and opinions have
changed. The resulting changes in opinion can be seen as the
conclusions the general public would reach, if people had the
opportunity to become more informed and more engaged on
the issues.

The objective of the method is to identify what, if any,

changes in public opinion would occur if the general public were
able to become more informed about an issue, and to engage
with it. It can be used for securing a detailed, representative
sample of public opinion and when this is to be integrated into
policy-making. It is well suited to uncontroversial issues and
to ones where a change in opinion is to be expected following a
deliberation. The results of the exercise are usually
expressed as changes in opinion amongst the participants of
the poll. These changes can often also be expressed as
statistics and so can be compared or followed over time. As a
result, it is not that well suited for issues, which might
change during deliberation or identifying consensus. However,
it has a role to play if the development of well-informed

19
opinions on issues, which do not change over time, is the
desired outcome.

Scenario-building exercises and workshops

Scenarios are narrative descriptions of potential futures

that focus attention on relationships between events and
decision points. Scenario workshops evaluate possible future
developments and the scenario technique is
applicable for economic, technological and
social developments. Scenario workshops are
a good way of identifying possible futures and
working to develop actions on the strength of
what might happen. Often participants need
to have an interest in the field or a good degree of
previous/specialist knowledge to be able to participate fully,
though this is not always the case.

Typically, during such a process an analysis of the status quo

is first conducted. The main influencing factors and key data
are collected – what would happen if this changed, what is the
influence of this issue, how this actor or organisation could
disrupt events, etc. With these possible forces of influence
mixed in together, participants develop visions for the future
based on what might happen if a factor came into play or a
trend played out. The method encourages participants to
think creatively, weighing up different trends. For this reason
it can also lend itself to achieving a broader, more creative
frame of reference amongst the participants.

A whole series of additional techniques have been developed

to achieve structured brainstorming about the different
scenarios: future wheels, envisioning workshops, expert
panels, or focus groups. All can be highly relevant to an EU
uncertain of its future direction and where decision-making
always follows a long time horizon.

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Participatory budgeting

Participatory budgeting has spread from Porto Alegre and

other Latin American cities to a significant number of
European destinations, and even to China. In this method,
citizens deliberate how to allocate a budget or parts of a
budget. In doing so, they select their priorities for the
allocation of limited resources, spending priorities etc. and
are able to give important feedback and input on policy
options for decision-makers. Participatory budgeting is often
conducted at the local level with a variety of motives:
democratic participation, but also to increase transparency,
combat fraud and ensure that limited resources are better
targeted to real needs. Though this brings the advantage of
giving citizens very direct control of
those areas of policy decided at the
local level, it also limits the scope of
their involvement to those policy areas
covered by local resources; or to a
small proportion of a total budget when
this is covered largely by national
contributions. For example, school
meals and facilities could be under local
control, but the teachers’ salaries
could be excluded. At first sight, this
technique would not be relevant to the
EU budget. However, the European
regional, social and rural development funds are closest to
citizens, but not necessarily perceived as such. There is no
reason why a proportion of them could not be given over to
participatory budgeting.

Participatory budgeting is an approach worth examining for

application to appropriate parts of the EU expenditure. Given
the lack of connection between the European budget and the
taxpayer, and the importance attributed to different policy
areas implicit in the allocation of resources, participatory

21
budgeting offers a very real and important opportunity for
the EU to identify citizens’ priorities for its actions.

In all instances, the right approach is the strategic one. It is

not a question of selecting a particular tool from the toolbox;
often several are necessary, involving citizens and
stakeholders, experts and policy-makers, hence the
recommendation for using a checklist. As the citizens
themselves recognised in the conclusions of the Citizens’
Panel project, participation is a challenge, which can result in
success or failure.

Apart from weighing up the benefits and pitfalls of citizen

participation, EU policy-makers have to be aware that, with
the lack of a European public sphere, ordinary people have real
difficulty relating to the EU Institutions. In the Citizens’
Panel project and final conference held on 26 th February
2010, people stressed that they do not know where to find
channels of communication towards the EU, and
that it is wrong to expect them to participate
meaningfully if they have not been informed in
the first place. Their observations also
suggested that EU communication presents a
confused image, and that they would like a
clearer, updated focal point where they could
follow the progress of particular issues.
Information should be better organised at
different geographical levels. The responsibility
of the press was stressed, particularly of
television, as the main source of information on Europe. A
distinction is often made between traditional information and
communication policies, and more modern citizen
participation techniques. However, the citizens tend to put
these two issues, which experts tend to treat differently, in
the same context.

22
In conclusion: the EU has a wide range of rapidly evolving
techniques available. The ones selected here are only an
exemplary selection, and serve to highlight the availability of
techniques on different scales for different outcomes. There
is a growing interest, also among practitioners, in exchanging
experiences on what is new, what works or does
not work under specific circumstances. There is
also the potential to augment these techniques
with tailored information technology applications
to help reach a wider group and to facilitate
better deliberations. This is particularly
important for the EU with a population around
500 million. With the expansion of social
networks and e-participation, a toolkit of
electronic participation can be developed. With this in mind,
the European Commission would be well advised to convene a
group of practitioners, experts and policy-makers to help
facilitate exchange on the best forms of participation for the
challenges faced by the European Institutions. Such a group
could help the Commission produce a ‘green paper’ on the
future of European citizens’ deliberations – itself subject to
widespread consultation. This should lead to building a citizen
pillar in EU policy-making.

23
III. W HAT HAS BEEN T HE EXPER IENCE SO F AR W IT H
CIT IZ EN PAR T ICIPAT ION AT T HE EU R OPEAN LEVEL?

In parallel to the work of the Convention on the Future of

Europe which drew up the Constitutional Treaty, the previous
European Commission, and in particular its Vice-President
Margot Wallström, revived the debate on the Union’s
communication policy and ways to overcome the
information deficit. After a period of
consultation and a series of conferences on a
white paper involving various stakeholders, the
Commission produced an action plan. The main
emphasis of this was listening to citizens,
communicating in a way, which related more
clearly to peoples’ everyday concerns and ‘going
local’. An inter-institutional agreement
between the Commission, European Parliament
and Council put communication policy on firmer
ground. Progress has been made with local radio networks,
the Europarl television channels and European public spaces.

With the extensive consultations and time taken to reshape

the EU’s communication policy in general, European
experimentation with the participatory toolbox came about
as a result of the crisis created by the French and Dutch ‘no’
votes to the Constitutional Treaty. It became vital to re-
connect. Thus ‘Plan D for Democracy Dialogue and Debate’
was launched. The positive feature was a
shift from a top-down communication
policy, which had been shown to fail, to a
more bottom-up approach.

The first experimental phase of using

participatory democracy techniques
has demonstrated that they work at
the European level. In summing up the results, the European
Commission has concluded, “those projects showed that the

24
development of participatory democracy in EU-related issues at
local, regional, national and cross-border level is possible, both in
terms of quality and logistics.”8 The most extensive of the six
Plan D projects was the European
Citizens’ Consultations coordinated by
the King Baudouin Foundation.
Conducted in 2007 and again in
2009, the project was able to further
improve the format used. In 2007, a
European agenda setting event
involving 150 randomly selected
citizens from all Member States
identified the issues important to
citizens and to be discussed at 27
national consultations. These events
involving 30 to 200 randomly selected citizens drew up
national recommendations, which were brought together at
another European event into a series of European
recommendations.

In 2009 the European Citizens’ Consultations integrated an

online phase into the design to identify the aspects of
Europe’s economic and social future, which were important to
citizens. This enabled far greater participation through
twenty-seven national websites. Randomly selected
participants at national consultations involving 30 to 100
people drew up their recommendations, with the most
important selected through online debate and voting, before
being debated with European decision-makers at the
European Citizens’ Summit.

This decentralised approach can be compared to the more

centralised pan-European deliberative polling organised by
‘Notre Europe’ with a random sample of some 400 citizens

8
Communication from the Commission ‘Debate Europe – building on the
experiences of Plan D’ (COM (2008)158/4).

25
gathering together for three days and debating face-to-face.
Other projects have also been developed with the
participation of foundations and the support of the European
Commission.9

On the 27 th November 2009, the European Commission (DG

Communication) organised a seminar on
the basis of an extensive evaluation of the
Plan D and Debate Europe activities. This
200-page report has the advantage of
critically highlighting what worked and
what did not, although it tended to
overlook the extent to which this was a
first experimental phase, largely
unplanned, when the European Commission
needed to show that it could react to a
crisis. The yardstick of institutionalised
processes cannot measure such projects and initiatives. It
also covered some 107 projects, only a small proportion of
which followed the strict methodology of citizens’
deliberations based on random selection of representative
groups.

Based on the partners and experts involved in the European

Citizens’ Panel and the discussions of the evaluation report,
there is a rather clear indication of what has worked so far
and where further progress should be made:

What has worked well:

- Creating delivery mechanisms. In this first phase,

delivery mechanisms were created which did not
exist before or which were not tailored to the

9
‘Meeting of Minds’, organised by the King Baudouin Foundation; ‘Future of
rural policies in Europe’, organised by the Foundation for Future Generations.
The Danish Board of Technology is running a citizen consultation project in
selected Member States on the future of EU research policies.

26
 European context. Due to the interest shown by
foundations in the participatory toolbox, it has now
become easier to identify and set up networks of
organisations among all or groups of Member States.
Harmonised approaches have been worked on and
tested to overcome the technical, linguistic and
logistical problems: recruitment of citizens,
ensuring impartial facilitation of their debates,
working with several languages and the use of
electronic communication tools. In international
terms, this has been a first.

- Participation of citizens. Citizens are keen to be

involved in a substantive debate on policy issues and
options. Not least the participants of
the European Citizens’ Panel showed this
with their initial scepticism soon turning
into differentiated and enthusiastic
debates. The need to provide
appropriate preparatory information and
the right use of experts are important
prerequisites for this, as recommended
by the citizens at the European Citizens’
Panel.

The discovery of sharing common everyday concerns

with other people from different backgrounds and
across borders has facilitated debate and the
framing of agreed recommendations, as well as
enabling an engagement with issues at a very
personal level. Even the seemingly abstract topic of
the European Citizens’ Panel - participating citizens
shaping how participation can work - caught peoples’
imagination.

- Outreach and press coverage. The larger-scale

projects have reached many more people than those

27
 directly involved, largely due to the result of
traditional media activity. This is increasingly
augmented by the potential to use e-participation
and social networks. Events that give journalists an
opportunity to interview an ordinary citizen, a
government Minister and Members of the European
Parliament make for a European story with human
interest.10 The fact that the European Citizens’
Consultations happen at the same time across
different Member States, and are visually
interesting events, help maximise impact and press
coverage.

What progress still needs to be made:

- Improving the quality and depth of recommendations

As the previous section has shown, there is often a

trade-off in citizens’ deliberations between the
process of democratic participation on the one hand
and the output and its contribution to policy-making
on the other. Plan D and Debate Europe were more
about the first than the
second, particularly in the
context of the crisis and
impasse round the
constitutional Treaty.
These were agenda-setting
events. The evaluation
reports of the Plan D and
Debate Europe projects proposes that future
projects would do well to concentrate on one issue
which is controversial, complex, affects citizens’

10
Even the relatively small-scale European Citizens’ Panel project led to a
seven-minute long report on Bulgarian television news after the final event on
the 26th February 2010.

28
 everyday lives, and is on the EU agenda. It should also
be an issue in which the citizens’ recommendations
will then have a role to play in further policy-making
processes – their contribution should be ‘given
space’.

- Creating a better connection between citizens’

deliberations and decision-makers

Plan D and Debate Europe were centred on three

broad themes relating to a period of reflection on
the future of Europe: Europe’s economic and social
development; feelings towards Europe and the
Union’s tasks; Europe’s borders and its role in the
world. The design of projects should have been
shared between DGs Communication, Education and
Culture and other departments
responsible for the substantive
issues so that the interlocutors of
the citizens were the decision-
makers. Participation of politicians
and members of the executive in
responsible citizens’ deliberations
was high, but not organised according to topic.

“It very often seems that in order to reduce the

democratic deficit at the European level, citizens
have to be ‘educated’ and better informed, in order
to better understand the complexity of European
politics. This is true. However, it is also true that
European politicians and civil servants should be
educated in order to better understand the needs
and values of European citizens, and to incorporate
the principles of participatory governance in their
actual practices. This dimension is insufficiently
taken into account.”

29
(Excerpt from an expert contribution quoted in the
evaluation report.)

The following extract from the evaluation report

echoes the recommendations made by the citizens
participating in the European Citizens’ Panel – the
call for clear institutional follow-up and
transparency about where the process of citizen
participation links into other decision-making
processes.

“The important characteristic of a participation

process is its link with the policy-making process and
its potential as a vertical accountability
instrument. Thus, the presence of policy-makers
(politicians or high-ranking officials) may be
interesting since they can provide both relevant
information and symbolic legitimacy to
the process. However, this will only be
the case if these politicians are involved
in the specific policy-making of the
subject being discussed and they can
answer, discuss and be questioned
through the process.”

“No rule makes it clear how to integrate

what has been done in the decision-
making process. In the worst case,
these activities could be “just words” without any
impact on European public policies – this would
discredit the participatory frame. At least, some
accountability should characterise the process
through adequate information concerning the way
citizens’ proposals have been (or have not been)
taken into account.”

(Excerpts from the expert contributions.)

30
- Improving follow-up to the recommendations and
feedback to citizens

The European Institutions have started to

experiment with participatory democracy
techniques, but have not yet considered, except on
a case-by-case basis, the key question of how the
output they generate should feed into the decision-
making process. As the OECD Handbook quote below
puts it in one of the ten tips for government:

“When governments involve citizens in policy-making, they

create expectations. Governments need to
demonstrate to citizens that their inputs are valuable
and that they are taken into account when making policy.
If they fail to do so, citizens may prove unwilling to
spend their precious time responding to future
government invitations.”

The Handbook also makes the point that just one

experiment is not going to be enough and
spill over into sudden belief that the public
authority is to be trusted and participatory
democracy is working. One recommendation
made by citizens participating in the Europe
Citizens’ Panel was the establishment of a
‘clearing house’ for the recommendations
made, via which citizens from across Europe
could receive timely, transparent
information about the progress of their
inputs and recommendations.

31
The progress and contribution made by citizen
participation and deliberation have significantly
outweighed these weaknesses, which are inherent in
the nature of Plan D and Debate Europe. Citizens’
deliberations have shown
that they work at the local
and European levels - now it
is a question of examining
how they could become a
more organised feature, built
in to the EU’s consultation,
agenda setting, policy-making and implementation
mechanisms. These areas were all highlighted as
points in the decision-making process at which they
felt citizens have a role to play and should
participate.

32
IV. HOW COU LD A CIT IZ EN PILLAR BE BU ILT INT O EU
POLICY -M AKING ?

In considering how to mainstream deliberations in EU policy-

making, it does not seem desirable to include or exclude areas
of activity in advance or to
limit citizens’ involvement
only to a particular stage in
the decision-making process.
The approach can be flexible,
but an organising framework
is necessary.

In terms of Article 11 of the Lisbon Treaty, the EU

Institutions have to maintain a regular dialogue with citizens
and civil society. The principle of participatory democracy
therefore applies to all those Institutions, even though
Article 11 makes a special mention of the Commission as the
initiator of policy and legislation, which is therefore the key
Institution for early consultation. With its mention of
‘citizens,’ Article 11 implies that citizens’ deliberations
should be added to the Commission’s minimum standards of
consultation, largely directed at stakeholders. In developing
a framework on the basis of Article 11, there are a number of
reference points for building citizens’ deliberations in
European policy-making:

- The Charter of Fundamental Rights has become

legally binding with the entry into force of the Lisbon
Treaty and is to be applied in all EU policies. It
provides a framework of traditional and more modern
rights and is a statement of values.

- The Lisbon Treaty provides a more coherent EU

architecture with the abolition of the pillars and a
clearer picture of who decides what. In Article 5, the
new Treaty on the European Union provides a basic

33
 organisation/division of EU competence. There is a
clear distinction between areas of exclusive EU
competence; of competence shared with Member
States or of areas in which the EU has only a
supporting role. This is already an indication as to
whether citizens’ deliberations should be organised
at a European, national or regional level.

- There are organising frameworks for activities such

as the Europe 2020 with its priorities, the 5-year
programme of the
Commission, its annual
programme and those of the
Council Presidencies. The
EU financial perspectives -
2007-2013 – are being
renegotiated for the period
2014-2020 and this is an
important opportunity for involving citizens.

- The Europe for Citizens’ Programme with its

priorities and statements of values agreed between
the Commission and stakeholders is a useful point of
reference. From the Citizens’ Panel project, a useful
indicator was provided of the range of policy areas to
which citizens want to contribute.

The decisions of citizens’ deliberations need to be adapted to

the particular decision-making processes of the issues
selected and accompany them so as to have a chance of
making an impact. Some argue that the EU should take a lead
as a modern administration and stimulate citizens’
participation more generally. However, the EU has to show
that it can follow up citizens’ recommendations, and not
disappoint their expectations; therefore, citizen
participation has to be related to what can be delivered.
Within this overall framework, three points need to be

34
considered for a more strategic organisation of citizens’
deliberations:

- Identifying the broad categories of use of citizens’

deliberations for European policy-making;
- A checklist for their application on a case-by-case
basis; and
- Last, but not least, questions of cost.

Categories of use of citizens’ deliberations for European

policy-making

There are four main categories of use for citizens’

deliberations:

- Citizens’ deliberations as part of the formation of

future priorities for the EU

The tools indicated here are powerful and creative

and will bring fresh thinking to EU affairs often
dominated by input from experts and
stakeholders, who tend to overlook the
cross-cutting issues or those not
defined by specific academic
disciplines. It is possible to extract
from almost any participatory process
fresh thinking and new ways of looking
at problems. There are techniques for
building scenarios with the input from citizens, and
involving them in assessing EU challenges and
priorities in a longer-term perspective. Involving
citizens in the large, strategic road maps for the
Union, such as that of drawing up the EU 2020
strategy, would be highly recommendable.

35
- Broad agenda-setting in policy areas

There is no doubt that there is a case for large-scale

pan-European events covering all 27 Member
States to give a stronger feedback
and resonance to citizens’ concerns
than is possible through opinion polls
alone. Taking broad themes such as
the EU’s position on climate change
following the 2009 Copenhagen
summit, the need for a common
European energy policy or even the
future international role of the EU,
such agenda-setting, large-scale
events have an important role to play
in enabling the Institutions to identify
citizens’ priorities and expectations for the EU as a
whole, its role and for the important points of
emphasis within a policy area. A multi-media
approach to citizens and stakeholders discussing
the same issue at the same time across Europe can
have a significant impact. Broad agenda-setting
events could be linked to European years, such as
2011, the year of volunteering. The emphasis here
is mostly on process and involvement of a large
number of citizens to identify broad themes and
pathways, rather than on detailed
recommendations. The target for such agenda-
setting events could be European Commissioners,
Members of the European Parliament and the
Council Presidency. Conducting such consultations
in a timely fashion prior to large decisions being made
is an important time for large-scale, pan-European
debates.

36
 - Citizen participation in consultations on green
papers and draft legislation

The European Commission has developed an open

system of consultation to gather the views of
stakeholders which are based on
specific questions and options
and which are advertised on
‘Your Voice in Europe.’11 Many
consultations are too technical,
late-in-the-day of policy
formulation and uncontroversial
to make citizen involvement
really meaningful. Sometimes, however,
consultations touch on themes for which the
collective views of citizens would provide a valuable
input. Controversial, divisive issues can soon and
easily lead to irretraceable positions amongst the
parties involved, with conflicts hardened into
inaction. Involving citizens on such issues can offer
both a fresh perspective and legitimacy for
constructive engagement in the resolution of an
issue – be it issues such as GMOs or the use of fossil
fuels and stem-cell research.
Other examples where citizen consultations can add
value to specific policy proposals are on Regulations
or Directives which involve information and labelling
schemes for consumers and users, trade-offs
between price and environmental or animal
protection, or ethical questions in research and the
use of new technologies. Here, certain techniques
are available such as citizens’ juries and consensus
conferences which would involve a smaller group of
citizens working over a longer period of time with
input from experts to produce in-depth

11
Commission minimum standards of consultation December 2002.

37
 recommendations on a narrow set of policy options
or their technical implementation options.

- Citizen participation in implementation and follow-up

One of the most promising ideas proposed by

participants of the European Citizens’ Panels is the
participation of citizens in the implementation and
follow-up of policy in addition to earlier stages of the
policy process. Citizens as ‘watchdogs’ was one turn
of phrase used and one which sums up well their call
for citizens being able to hold decision-makers to
account for the decisions they have made in their
name, as well as to take on a more active role in policy
implementation. The idea represents a novel
opportunity for active citizen engagement in policy
and is one, which would merit further exploration,
especially in light of its potential to bridge the gap
between EU policy and local impacts.

A checklist for applying citizens’ deliberations on a case-by-

case basis

Citizens’ deliberations should be mainstreamed across EU

policies and become an established, trusted
and actively used instrument of policy
identification, formulation and implementation.
However, shaping the process within which to
apply them and what techniques or mixture of
techniques should be used can only be
assessed on a case-by-case basis. What is
important is to offer a set of guidelines for
citizen participation, perhaps linked to and
existing alongside the Commission’s
standards of consultation. In this way, the
Institutions and citizens themselves would be confident that

38
where citizens’ deliberations are used, they are conducted
according to agreed standards, that there are agreed
protocols and channels of communication with the
Institutions, and agreed upon obligations on both sides.
Actively managing expectations in this way is important to
ensuring that citizen consultation is used properly. Such a
checklist should include the following points12:

(i) Choose issues which

are both relevant to
citizens and/or are on
the agenda of the
European Institutions,
whilst being sufficiently
controversial, complex and offer sufficient scope
for citizens to make a contribution so as to
encourage debate and in-depth deliberation from
citizens;

(ii) Make sure the right tools are selected for the
right subjects, that these are embedded in the
right processes and that the partners have a
solid methodological and organisational
structure;

(iii) Respect the subsidiary principle and make sure

that the way citizens’ deliberations are
organised accompanies a particular decision-
making process at different geographical levels;

(iv) Require the publication of a plan and road map

for the project so that citizens know what they
are embarking on and the Institution can plan its
response. It is important to manage

12
We are grateful to the evaluators of the Plan D/Debate Europe projects who
propose a very similar approach to this.

39
 expectations on both sides by embedding
consultations into clearly defined, outcome-
orientated processes with their role and
influence communicated at the outset;

(v) Seeking balanced and representative

recruitment of citizens is a vital foundation
stone to any deliberative process. This will
involve demographic, geographic and socio-
economic criteria which help ensure different
views are represented;

(vi) Ensure balance not just in recruitment but also

in the deliberations, which should be conducted
neutrally so as to give all participants an equal
say and ensure that none penalised because of
the lack of language skills, level of knowledge etc.;

(vii) Informing and clarifying the scope and legitimacy

for action by the EU on an issue is critical.
Citizens may not be aware of the
scope and limits of EU
competence in particular. This
means enough time being made
available for the provision and
absorption of appropriate
information, tailored to citizens,
including experts in the debate
and encouragement to citizens
to inform them;

(viii) Involving policy-makers is

essential at the stage of
designing projects and not only at the end of the
process, not least because policy-makers give
the EU a face, provide insight and information;
they enable another perspective to be brought

40
 into citizens’ deliberations and considerations,
and policy-makers themselves benefit from this
two-way engagement with citizens;

(ix) Projects should achieve a high degree of

multiplier effect: the role of the press is
essential in informing more people than the small
numbers participating directly. E-
participation and use of social
networks should be linked to citizens’
deliberations to broaden the scope of
those who can become involved,
though it should be noted that these
do not and cannot (yet) replace face-
to-face deliberations. Incorporating
the right online elements into a
process is important;

(x) Ensure that the report and recommendations of

citizens are discussed directly with the
appropriate policy-makers at different
geographical levels and in the European
Institutions. In turn, this dialogue should be
linked, where possible, to broader consultations
of stakeholders. It is vital that citizens receive
an explanation within a reasonable time of which
recommendations can be accepted or rejected
and how they can follow the issue through the
subsequent stages of the decision-making
process, helping increase transparency.

Costs

The OECD handbook ‘Citizens as Partners’ points out that

information, consultation and active participation do require
resources but that the “funds needed to achieve significant
results […] are usually small in comparison to the total amount

41
spent on a given policy.” Beyond this, and with increasing
relevance for today’s world of complex policy decision, it
highlights the opportunity costs of inaction; “given the
problems arising from poorly designed and implemented policies,
governments find strengthening their relations with citizens to be
worth the investment. They also increasingly learn that not engaging
in them can create much higher costs, through policy failure in the
short term as well as loss of trust, legitimacy and policy
effectiveness in the long term.”

The evaluation report of Plan D and Debate Europe activities

proposed creating “a new ‘open’ instrument, i.e. available to all
DGs engaged in a policy-making process, and also to
Representatives in Member States willing to foster public debate
on an issue which is high on the EU political agenda.” Under such a
scheme, relevant departments or national authorities would
buy into this instrument in a way appropriate to their needs
thus enabling a flexible mechanism to be
established which would enable a speedy,
effective, efficient and flexible use of
citizen consultations for a variety of
policy areas. Importantly, the
establishment of such an instrument
would also enable citizen consultation to
be used more broadly and by additional
actors and would, importantly;
significantly reduce the costs of
consultations through scale and learning
efficiencies. The same evaluation report
suggests that the Commission could use calls for tender to
obtain offers precisely suited to its needs rather than
providing grants to civil society organisations. This would give
more latitude to such organisations and networks of
experienced practitioners for the execution of citizens’
deliberations.

42
A variety of evaluations and sources, together with the
lessons learned to-date all conclude that with careful
planning and strategic thinking the benefits and
outcomes of citizen participation notably
outweigh the costs. This is in addition to the
scale advantages and learning efficiencies, which
can be drawn on, thanks to the extensive testing
and implementation of citizen consultations to-
date. As one of the participants in the ECAS
project put it: “no money, no citizens.” Additional
considerations which should be born in mind when
evaluating the costs of citizen consultations
and which speak in their favour:

- The qualitative, considered and informed outcomes of

citizen consultations are more valuable to policy-
makers than a simple opinion poll. To directly
compare the costs does not convey the additional
value generated by the former – neither that for
policy-makers nor that for the citizens involved;

- Working in partnership with regional and national

authorities, foundations and private sponsors,
especially for pan-European citizens’ consultations,
offers the opportunity for the EU to build
partnerships and multipliers in Member States,
helping to draw on the local context and resources
to reach citizens. Such large scale consultation
exercises have been tested and further developed,
with scale efficiencies and learning advantaged
demonstrably reducing the associated costs, making
their roll-out and institutionalisation all the more
appealing for the EU;

- The media impact and outreach from such citizen

consultation projects has shown itself to be
significant, broadening the reach (and thus reducing

43
 the per capita cost) to numbers far beyond and well
in excess of those attending these events. The
human interest angle is particularly attractive for
media, especially local media, with the engagement of
ordinary, local citizens in issues of European policy;
an exciting and new way for the media to report on
European issues;

- Different scales can be used for citizens’

deliberations, with those involving smaller groups of
citizens from a limited number of Member States
also having an impact and
lasting value – both for the
individuals participating
and beyond;

- There is no substitute for

intensive face-to-face
debate among citizens. It
cannot be substituted by virtual technologies,
especially whilst knowledge, experience and trust are
limited amongst the citizens asked to participate in
such consultations. However, carefully integrating
online debates into offline, face-to-face debates and
processes offers new opportunities to reduce the
gap between a virtual and physical debate and, above
all, enabling significantly large numbers of people to
participate at a reasonable cost.

Although some might argue that it would be cheaper and take

less time to launch a traditional top-down communication
strategy or conduct an opinion poll, all the evidence suggests
that this will not work on its own. Society, and in particular,
the younger generation has moved on from the information
age to the participation age.

44
V. CONCLU SIONS

This report has shown that there are already a variety of

instruments available to a European Union, which wants to
bridge the gap with citizens. They have been tried and tested
and proven to work. More are likely to develop, which will allow
for two-way communication with millions of citizens at even
lower costs. The opportunities to combine on-line
communications with off-line, in-depth formats offers the
opportunity for an even greater number of people to be
reached and, if done properly, offers the opportunity for more
intense online debates- even though they are unlikely to
replace face-to-face debates among citizens.

As the breadth of literature, evaluations and assessments

drawn upon for this report show information, consultation
and participation, different top-down,
bottom-up, centralising or decentralising
approaches can and should co-exist. Citizen
participation and participatory
instruments do not change in any way the
fact that it is elected representatives and
public institutions, which adopt laws and
make collective decisions. What they do
challenge is the assumption that citizens do not want to
have a say in policy-making and lack the necessary expertise
or have little to contribute.

This precisely has been shown in the recommendations made

by the citizens participating in the European Citizens’ Panel
project. The motivation and interest of citizens that
prompted their participation is testimony to this. Citizens
called for more information about how they could become
involved in European issues and decision-making so that they
can pursue these existing opportunities as well as additional,
participatory ones. Also, they see their role at all stages of
the policy process – from the board, agenda-setting stage

45
through to designing the implementation of policy and
monitoring its follow-up.

Participatory instruments – and citizens! – promote the idea

that input to policy is too important to be the monopoly of
policy-makers and their immediate partners. As citizens
taking involved in the project highlighted, partners such as
the media and civil society need to be more involved in bridging
the gap with citizens – and a number of participatory formats
lend themselves particularly well to facilitate this and, in
doing so, reaching even more people than those taking part in
off-line events.

Critical for securing the input and buy-in of citizens is – as

the project has shown – transparency in the process and
offering citizens follow-up to their
recommendations. Be it via ‘clearing house’ for
citizens’ recommendations or from the EU
Institutions themselves, citizens want to
know what will happen to the input they have
given. This fits into calls from experts,
practitioners and the reviews of the EU’s
participatory activities that a degree of institutionalisation
of participation take place and that a more strategic
approach be taken.

In front of this backdrop and with a view to the institutional

arrangements at the European level, the following
recommendations for immediate action emerge:

(i) The Commission should work on the next steps

towards a strategy for participation, across
DGs and the Institutions. It should do so with a
panel of experts, practitioners, policy-makers
and citizens to develop the participatory
democracy toolbox to make it ready for a variety
of issues – and policy areas and stages. It should

46
 bring together actors within the EU
Institutions already working on the issue of
participation so as to aggregate their
experience, best practice and learning, enabling
this to be built upon with other insights. After
all, citizens want to contribute to a breadth of
European issues, which affect them and want to
do so at a number of stages in the policy
process, as the European Citizens’ Panel
project as shown.

(ii) A broader, participatory consultation should

emerge, with questions about different options
for mainstreaming
a citizen pillar into
European policy-
making. The type
of checklist
advocated in this
report should be
included and
guidelines for a methodology for designing
citizen deliberations should be developed. Such a
methodology would need to be carefully
balanced, providing insight without being
formulaic, given that no two consultations are
alike.

(iii) A ‘clearing house’ of the type recommended by

citizens should be established which can act as
a central information point for citizens involved
in participatory processes. Above all, this
‘clearing house’ should provide transparent
information on the follow-up process to
recommendations made by citizens and to their
involvement in the policy process. This should be
linked closely with other Institutions, national

47
 governments or regions. Citizens see MEPs as
having a role to play in this and no
doubt the EU Institutions need to
make follow-up to participation
transparent and a two-way process.

(iv) A campaign to inform citizens about

their existing opportunities to
participate and become involved in
European policy should be
considered. Especially in light of the
recent changes introduced by
Article 11, this could represent a first step in
mobilising even more citizens to become more
engaged with Europe. Involving the media in this,
as recommended by the citizens, will also be
crucial in bridging the gap.

48
49
European Citizen Action Service
Avenue de la Toison d’Or 77
B-1060 Brussels
Tel: +32 2 548 04 90
Fax: +32 2 548 04 99
E-mail: info@ecas.org
Web: www.ecas-citizens.eu

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