Revamping the European Citizens’ Initiative: bringing DEI in from the cold

Despite its uptake by citizens and civil society for issues such as abortion rights and ending conversion therapy, the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) does not seem to be effective at encouraging long-term policy change. Similarly, the Conference on the Future of Europe and subsequent European Citizens’ Panels (ECP) have had little impact despite being widely publicised.

This ineffectiveness is not a bug but a feature: these initiatives have been set up in a way that makes them easily dismissible. Given the limited alternatives for civil society to influence EU policymaking, DEI-relevant discussions have effectively been stranded in policy limbo.

In this session, we discuss how the ECI and ECP processes could be improved to make them more likely to lead to institutional buy-in. In particular, we explore the possibility of integrating a dedicated citizens’ assembly into the ECI process.