A dialogue on democracy - Exploring participatory budgeting and citizen participation in the EU

Euractiv Events and Euractiv's Advocacy Lab

In recent decades, political institutions have witnessed a gradual erosion of trust among their constituents, a trend exacerbated by the economic and financial crisis. According to the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS), over the past 20 years, vote turnout in both Western and Eastern democracies has dropped by an average of 10 percentage points.

Within the European Union, which has faced criticism from citizens, non-governmental organizations, and other civil society groups, the challenge of greater involvement in European policy-making is consistently highlighted. From 2002 to 2010, the percentage of Europeans expressing dissatisfaction with politics increased from 31% to 43% (EPRS).

Participatory budgeting (PB) emerged as a solution to rejuvenate democratic participation, reinforce civil society, modernize public services, and combat corruption in the EU. According to the EPRS, the number of participatory budgeting experiments in the EU surged from 55 to over 1,300 between 2005 and 2012, engaging more than 8 million EU citizens.

Currently, PB is primarily employed at the municipal level, where citizens are invited to propose and vote on initiatives to be executed through the local budget. Although there are instances at regional and national levels, this practice has yet to be implemented on a European scale.

In the context of the H2020 project DEMOTEC, listen this Euractiv Virtual Conference to discuss PB and its potential at an EU level. Some questions to be discussed include:

• How will PB work in practice concerning specific policies at an EU level?
• How can PB complement representative democracy? Is it a valuable tool for improving citizens' trust in EU institutions?
• What challenges are associated with implementing such a process at an EU level?

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under Grant Agreement no 962553.

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