Recently, the need for citizen participation and involvement in EU decision-making has been felt more than ever. While some experiments, such as the European Convention of 2003, have prompted some positive outcomes for citizen engagement, it is only now that the recent deliberative wave in Europe and beyond is taking high effect. Drawing on the […]
Drought, deforestation, lack of access to clean water and green energy sources. This is just a snapshot of some of the environmental challenges faced by communities in rural Kenya, and shared by participants of Kenya’s first Green Academy. The Green Academy brings together 21 young people from different backgrounds and diverse regions of the country […]
On 1 April nine years ago, the European citizens’ initiative left the station of democratic innovation design and began its mission of bringing the EU and its citizens closer. To take stock of the nine-year-long journey of the European Citizens’ Initiative as it embarks on its future, I want to write to you about – […]
The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) is the first and, up to now, only instrument of transnational, participatory and digital democracy in the world and has its origins in the Constitutional Convention in 2002-03. When the ECI entered into force in 2012, civil society organisations across Europe have highly welcomed this new right which confers citizens […]
10 years since the adoption of the first ECI regulation: cause for celebration or concern? European citizens and organised civil society have so far played the central role in making the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) fit for purpose; now the European institutions need to join them and step up their game. As the European Citizens’ Initiative […]