Democratizing the EU: A Citizens’ Assembly

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Democratizing the EU: A Citizens’ Assembly

The European Union (EU) is argued to face a democratic deficit and legitimacy crisis stemming
from its institutional complexity and lack of direct public participation, as analyzed by Follesdal
and Hix (2006). One proposed solution is establishing a Citizens' Assembly that would provide
everyday people with a direct voice in EU policymaking.

But what constitutes a Citizens' Assembly? According to Farrell and coauthors (2019), it is a
representative group of ordinary citizens randomly selected to learn about, discuss, and make
policy recommendations regarding a specific issue. The intention is for the Assembly to mirror
society - serving as a microcosm of the larger population. The key benefit offered by Citizens'
Assemblies is enabling average citizens to meaningfully participate in addressing complex
governance topics.

In recent years, countries including Ireland, France, Belgium, the UK, and Canada have deployed
Citizens' Assemblies to deliberate on issues like abortion, climate change, democratic reform,
and constitutional change. For example, Ireland's 2016-2018 Citizens' Assembly brought
together 99 citizens to examine and recommend solutions for highly contentious matters such as
abortion and climate policy. The Assembly proved highly influential, with its proposals leading
to successful public votes overturning Ireland's constitutional abortion ban and declaring a
climate emergency (O’Gorman, 2019).

Citizens’ Assemblies are seen as an avenue to inject more substantive public participation into
policymaking processes that are often dominated by political parties, experts, and lobbyists.
Their key benefit is the real agenda-setting power they give to citizens regarding issues of public
concern. By allowing everyday people to meaningfully participate, Citizens' Assemblies
counterbalance political elites and special interests.

Composition and Selection

For a Citizens’ Assembly to work at the EU level, it would need to be composed of around 200
citizens selected from all 27-member states. The aim would be for the Assembly to represent the
demographic diversity of the EU population in terms of relevant characteristics like “age, gender,
ethnicity, education and occupation” (O’Gorman, 2019, p. 182).
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The recruitment and selection process would be facilitated by national statistics agencies and
electoral registers in each member state. Invitations would be issued by an independent civil
society organization at the EU level, such as the European Civic Forum, instead of EU
institutions themselves. This is to prevent the assembly from being biased towards pro-EU views
from the outset. Strict selection criteria and anonymity for participants during the process would
also help guard against special interests lobbying citizens or dominating the process (Caluwaerts
& Reuchamps, 2020).

Several experts on Citizens’ Assemblies emphasize that how participants are selected is crucial
for establishing public confidence in the legitimacy of the assembly (Farrell et al., 2019). A civic
lottery system is commonly used because it ensures the assembly reflects the broader society
rather than just engaging the usual activists who tend to participate in public consultations. The
randomness introduces diversity of perspectives and also gives every citizen an equal chance of
receiving an invitation. However, recruiting a demographically balanced assembly remains
challenging given low awareness and variable interest levels across different groups. Typically,
only around 5% of those invited choose to participate when recruited through a civic lottery
(O’Gorman, 2019).

Deliberation Process

The deliberations of the Citizens’ Assembly would likely take place over the course of 4-5
weekends throughout the year. The working language would be English, but interpretation
services would be provided to allow discussions to take place in multiple languages. At the start,
participants would receive balanced briefing materials giving an overview of the EU policy issue
to be deliberated. Throughout their meetings, the citizens would hear from expert speakers,
discuss the issues in small groups, and ultimately formulate collective recommendations.

The agenda would focus on one major EU policy issue per year. Some examples could be the
EU’s climate targets, asylum policy reforms, or ways to enhance democratic participation. The
Citizens’ Assembly would not have formal powers, but at the end, members would vote on
specific proposals, ideas or values to be formally submitted to the European Parliament and
European Commission for serious consideration. The outputs cannot be binding but they can
exert moral suasion on EU institutions and member state governments to take citizen
perspectives seriously (O'Gorman, 2019).
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Benefits of the EU's Democratic Legitimacy

Convening such a Citizens’ Assembly could provide a range of benefits related to enhancing the
EU’s democratic legitimacy and addressing the perceived democratic deficit. Setälä and Smith
(2018) identify three main interrelated benefits of mini-publics like Citizens’ Assemblies: they
educate the public, give voice to citizen perspectives, and can enhance legitimacy.

Firstly, a European Citizens’ Assembly would serve an important educational function -

informing citizens about “the European policy process and the key issues confronting the EU”
(O’Gorman, 2019, p. 182). Through learning together and being exposed to alternative
perspectives, citizens can gain a much richer understanding of the EU policy issues, trade-offs
involved, and reasons why change can be difficult.

Secondly, having citizens spend time seriously debating issues and proposing solutions grants
them real agenda-setting power in the EU policy process. This channelling of citizen values,
concerns, and perspectives provides an important democratic corrective to the EU’s traditional
reliance on technocratic governance and closed-door inter-state negotiations. Citizens’
Assemblies give voice to the broad spectrum of public opinion - not just capture consolidated
majority views.

Finally, by visibly incorporating ordinary citizens into its high-level processes, the EU can
significantly bolster its legitimacy and credibility in the eyes of the public (Caluwaerts &
Reuchamps, 2020). When citizens see their peers engaged in substantive deliberation on complex
issues, they may grant greater credence to the EU’s policies and identity with EU governance.
The Assembly thus helps close the psychological distance between the EU institutions and
ordinary people.

Criticisms and Limitations

Some critics argue that a Citizens’ Assembly is simply not feasible or realistic at the scale of the
EU with its linguistic diversity and 500 million citizens. Convening a demographically
representative assembly requires significant coordination and cost. Others question whether
ordinary citizens can ever have sufficient knowledge to make meaningful contributions to the
highly complex policy issues facing the EU (Owen & Smith, 2015).
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However, evidence from national-level Citizens’ Assemblies demonstrates that sample sizes of
around 100-200 participants are sufficient for representing the broader population and generating
deliberative outcomes (Farrell et al., 2019). Interpretation services also make linguistic diversity
manageable in small-group discussions. Furthermore, studies of mini-publics and Citizens’
Assemblies consistently show that citizens can quickly acquire substantive policy expertise
through balanced learning materials and expert presentations (Grönlund et al., 2014). While
citizens may lack technical knowledge, they have other experiential knowledge to contribute.

Of course, merely convening a Citizens’ Assembly in itself does not solve the EU’s legitimacy
problems. Meaningful follow-up action from policymakers is essential for Assembly
recommendations to have a lasting impact. There are also risks of disillusionment if expectations
are raised too high. However, empirical research on mini-publics demonstrates they can shift
participant attitudes on controversial issues like migration and climate policy (Caluwaerts &
Reuchamps, 2020). So even an advisory Assembly can potentially benefit public debates.

Conclusion

In summary, convening a transnational Citizens’ Assembly would provide a powerful and visible
means of democratizing EU governance and addressing its perceived democratic deficit. While
not a silver bullet, incorporating citizen deliberation directly into high-level EU policy processes
can help give citizens a meaningful agenda-setting voice, educate the wider public, and
ultimately enhance the legitimacy of the EU in the eyes of its citizens. Given growing calls
across Europe for a more participatory EU, leaders should give serious consideration to piloting
such a Citizens’ Assembly. Careful design could allow the Assembly to channel citizen
perspectives and values into addressing the complex policy challenges facing Europe.
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References

Caluwaerts, D., & Reuchamps, M. (2020). Strengthening democracy through bottom-up

deliberation: An assessment of the internal legitimacy of the citizens’ assembly process.
European Journal of Political Research, 59(2), 458-479.

Farrell, D. M., Suiter, J., Harris, C., & Cunningham, K. (2019). ‘Systematizing’ constitutional
deliberation: the 2016–18 citizens’ assembly in Ireland. Irish Political Studies, 34(1),
113-123.

Follesdal, A., & Hix, S. (2006). Why there is a democratic deficit in the EU: A response to
Majone and Moravcsik. Journal of Common Market Studies, 44(3), 533-562.

Grönlund, K., Bächtiger, A., & Setälä, M. (Eds.). (2014). Deliberative mini-publics: Involving
citizens in the democratic process. ECPR press.

O'Gorman, R. (2019). A citizens’ assembly for the European Union: A proposal to address the
EU's democratic deficit. European View, 18(2), 182-191.
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Owen, D., & Smith, G. (2015). Survey article: Deliberation, democracy, and the systemic turn.
Journal of Political Philosophy, 23(2), 213-234.

Setälä, M., & Smith, G. (2018). Mini-publics and deliberative democracy. The Oxford handbook
of deliberative democracy, 300-314.

Lafont, C. (2019). Can democracy be deliberative and participatory? The democratic case for
political uses of mini-publics. Daedalus, 148(3), 85-105.

Boulianne, S. (2018). Twenty years of digital media effects on civic and political participation.
Information, Communication & Society, 21(4), 540-554.

Curato, N., Dryzek, J. S., Ercan, S. A., Hendriks, C. M., & Niemeyer, S. (2017). Twelve key
findings in deliberative democracy research. Daedalus, 146(3), 28-38.