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Participatory mechanisms as symbolic policy instruments?

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Comparative European Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

Over the last 10 years, the European Union has been talking a lot about citizens’ participation, not least in its 2001 white paper on governance. But has there really been a participatory turn in the European political system, or is this simply a rhetorical change, without concrete implications? This article aims to answer the question on the basis of a research on the first participatory experiments conducted at the European level (citizens’ conferences, deliberative polls and consultations of citizens) and on European citizens’ initiative introduced by the Lisbon Treaty. As will be shown, such experiments or tools have been scarcely used, and they have failed to involve ‘ordinary’ citizens and to produce significant outputs. In short, they seem more important at the discursive level than in practice. This suggests that more attention should be given to the symbolic dimension of policy instruments.

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Notes

  1. We would like to warmly thank Christian Freudlsperger for his work and his valuable help in the empirical research for the achievement of this article.

  2. This typology deliberately ignores some European initiatives including or mentioning citizens. It is the case for instance of the European Parliament’s ‘Citizens’ Agora’ (www.europarl.europa.eu/agora), because, despite its title, the Agora constitutes, above all else, a civil society stakeholder meeting which makes representatives of civil society organizations to exchange views with MEP’s and other European decision-makers. The initiatives launched as part of the ‘Europe for citizens programme’ will also be left out: it has been looking to bring Europe closer to its citizens since 2007 but such initiatives are not designed to feed into the policy-making process (http://ec.europa.eu/citizenship/about-the-europe-for-citizens-programme/index_en.htm). Finally, many recent initiatives, such as ‘Towards a citizen-based European project’(http://ey2013-alliance.eu/nexs-view/towards-a-citizen-based-european-project-eu-citizenship-crossing-perspectives/) in July 2013 or ‘Creating strategies for improving a democratic and participative Europe’ (http://citizensforeurope.org/projects-activities/democratic-community-of-practice/) running since 2011, won’t be taken into account here, because of their lack of ordinary citizens’ inclusion and because they are more a reflection on how to improve citizens’ inclusion and citizenship in the EU rather than an experiment of citizens’ deliberation and participation on European issues.

  3. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/content/20110124IPR12355/html/Citizens'-Agora-on-crises-and-poverty-civil-society-to-table-proposals. Unfortunately, there is no available documentation whatsoever on this consensus conference.

  4. See for instance the ‘Your Voice’ website run by the European Commission: http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/index_en.htm.

  5. http://ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative/public/how-it-works/registration, last accessed 25 February 2014.

  6. That is to say between April 2012 and December 2014, which is the month when the empirical research for this paper was conducted. At that time, 20 months had passed since the launching of the first ECIs and a first round of initiatives could have followed the whole process, since 12 months are required for collecting the supports and 6 additional months for the verification and the submission to the European Commission.

  7. ‘Turn me off’ (3 February 2014); ‘European Free Vaping Initiative’ (25 November 2013); ‘Weed like to talk’ (20 November 2013); ‘European Initiative for Media Pluralism’ (19 August 2013); ‘Do not count education spending as part of the deficit! Education is an investment’! (6 August 2013); ‘Teach for Youth – Upgrade to Erasmus 2.0’ (17 June 2013); ‘ACT 4 Growth’ (10 June 2013).

  8. ‘Let me vote’ (closed on 28 January 2014); ‘End Ecocide in Europe: a Citizens’ Initiative to give the Earth Rights’ (closed on 21 January 2014); ‘30km/h – making the streets liveable’! (closed on 13 November 2013); ‘Central public online collection platform for the European Citizen Initiative’ (closed on 27 August 2013); ‘Suspension of the EU Climate & Energy Package’ (closed on 8 August 2013); ‘Stop Vivisection’ (closed on 22 June 2013); ‘One of Us’ (closed on 11 May 2013).

  9. ‘Pour une gestion responsable des déchets, contre les incinérateurs’ (closed on 1 November 2013); ‘Unconditional Basic Income (UBI): Exploring a pathway towards emancipator welfare conditions in Europe’ (closed on 14 January 2014); ‘Single Communication Tariff Act’ (closed on 3 December 2013); ‘High Quality European Education for All’ (closed on 1 November 2013); ‘Fraternité 2020 – Mobility. Progress. Europe’ (closed on 1 November 2013).

  10. ‘Water and sanitation are human right! Water is a public good, not a commodity’! (First successful ECI on with 1 659 543 signatories. Submitted on 20 December 2013).

  11. Since the end of this research, data have changed; at the present time (September 2014), two initiatives have been answered by the Commission: ‘Water and sanitation are human right! Water is a public good, not a commodity’! and ‘One of us’: http://ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative/public/initiatives/finalised/answered?lg=en.

  12. Yet, Bouza Garcia’s category of ‘cooperation ’ is not being taken into account since it is a vaguely defined residuum and covered by other categories. We want here to thank again Christian Freudlsperger who did a remarkable empirical work on the ECIs.

  13. See for instance the Case C212/91, AngelopharmGmBH v FreieundHansestadtHamburg, Rec. 1994 I-171, at the European Court of Justice or the Article 95 § 3 in the Treaty of Amsterdam.

  14. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:52007SC1267:EN:HTML, last accessed 19 February 2014.

  15. Commission of the EuropeanCommunities, Gouvernance européenne: un livre blanc [Europeangovernance: a white paper], July 2001, COM (2001) 428 Final.

  16. European Commission, Secrétariat Général, information note from Ms Wallström, ‘Plan D: Wider and deeper Debate on Europe’, 24 November 2006, Brussels, SEC (2006) 1553. http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/communication/pdf/SEC2006_1553_en.pdf, last accessed 20 February 2014.

  17. http://www.lisbon-treaty.org/wcm/the-lisbon-treaty/treaty-on-european-union-and-comments/title-2-provisions-on-democratic-principles/75-article-11.html, last accessed 20 February 2014.

  18. DECISION No 1093/2012/EU OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 21 November 2012 on the European Year of Citizens (2013); http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2012:325:0001:0008:EN:PDF, last accessed 20 February 2014.

  19. And the reformed ‘Europe for Citizens’ programme that we have decided to ignore in this study, as it is explained at the beginning of the first part.

  20. Bouza Garcia distinguishes between four categories of ‘promoters’, that is to say organizers of ECIs: officials (MPs, MEPs, and so on.); national CSOs; EU CSOs; and commercial interests. Yet, a ‘promoters’ category for ordinary citizen has been added here since preliminary results have shown that some ECIs are being carried out by laymen – even if this fact ought to be put in perspective (Bouza Garcia, 2012, pp. 342–343).

  21. 10 per cent of the ECIs are taken by officials and only 5 per cent by commercial interests.

  22. See notably her speeches in plenary: ‘One year of European Citizens’ Initiative in practice: evaluating experience and tackling obstacles (debate)’, 18 April 2013, P7_CRE-REV(2013)04-18(2); ‘Development of the European Citizens’ Initiative based on the Article 11.4 of the Treaty on European Union (debate)’, 24 March 2010, P7_CRE(2010)03-24(13).

  23. See notably his speech in plenary: ‘Citizens’ Initiative (debate)’, 15 February 2010, P7_CRE(2010)12-15(6).

  24. http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/barnier/docs/speeches/20130621_water-out-of-concessions-directive_en.pdf, last accessed 25 February 2014.

  25. On the symbolic dimension of participatory tools, see Bacqué et al. (2005, p. 32) and Blondiaux (2005, p. 124).

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  1. Centre d'études européennes (UMR 8239), Sciences Po, 27 rue Saint-Guillaume, Paris cedex 07, F – 75337, France

    Laurie Boussaguet

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Boussaguet, L. Participatory mechanisms as symbolic policy instruments?. Comp Eur Polit 14, 107–124 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1057/cep.2015.12

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