BRAINSTORMING SEMINAR ON CIVIC PARTICIPATION AND THE EU

ECAS-  (European Citizen Action Service) is organizing a brainstorming seminar on 'Civic Participation and the EU'. This seminar will take place at the Representation of Saxony-Anhalt to the European Union on 2 December 2013.

The event will revolve around three themes: The rights to know [Has the transparency initiative really made lobbying more transparent?, How well is the regulation on access to documents working?, To what extent is more information publicly available, but in  system  which has become more opaque and difficult to access?], the rights to be heard, and the rights to participate [What is the balance sheet of the first wave of European citizens' initiatives (ECIs)?, How can regulation be simplified when opportunity arises in 2015, Are ECIs the only participatory interests in town?]

Key Questions

• How to make the various channels of communication in the EU better known and more interesting to civil society and citizens?
• Why is that a relatively limited number of people complain, petition or address the European ombudsman?
• Is this primarily a question of more awareness raising, for example in the run up to European elections?
• Can initiatives such as ECAS' Charter in European citizenship help?
• What could be done by the EU institutions to introduce a more user-friendly administrative culture?
• Why do many consultations only produce responses from Brussels-insiders and well-established lobbies?
• Why are consultations much better in some areas of policy than others?
• Do citizens feel that their voices count with EU decision-makers?