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How can the left mobilise in times like these? What lessons to draw from earlier protest movements? Those were the questions put to a panel of authors of the recently published volume “The Crisis and Future of Democracy”, published by the Brussels office of the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung.
Brussels Capital Region will integrate a Citizens Assembly for Climate to help with green and sustainable policy. The assembly will have the power to control government decisions, ask for follow-ups a..
En juin, le Conseil économique social et environnemental (Cese) a annoncé la création d'une direction dédiée à la participation citoyenne. Entretien avec sa directrice, Marianne Escurat, qu
Citizen participation? Hell no! is a game created originally by Christophe Gouache for the Active Citizens’ URBACT action planning network. The game was created based on the long experience of Strategic Design Scenarios on citizen participation, forms of participatory approaches, social innovation and design for policy projects, initiatives, action-research processes, etc. SDS has worked for more than 10 years together with elected officials and civil servants, hearing a lot of comments, arguments, explanations from some people which justify their non-engagement towards more participatory processes…
Their stories and solutions have now been collected in a new e-book Resilience Matters: Opportunities for Action to Strengthen Communities
Launching a new resource centre, the European Commission has set out the ambition that eventually all policymakers will involve citizens from the very start of any new policy.
The Competence Centre on Participatory and Deliberative Democracy, announced earlier this month, aims to build partnerships and provide guidance, tools and resources to strengthen citizen engagement. This will include supporting pilots of new approaches, and several are underway, including on biodiversity in cities and future mobility solutions. An online platform and physical space will enable policymakers to collaborate.
Following last week’s general election in Norway, the centre-right government will step down, replaced by a left-wing coalition. Climate policy was an important feature of the campaign, but if this was indeed the first “climate election”, the results are disappointing. The end of oil remains beyond the political horizon, and there are important lessons for environmental activists and politicians about society’s reactions to the proclaimed state of climate emergency.
A shift to a greener economy should bring social benefits, especially for the poorest, or 'the politics will end up against us'
La coalition d’Angela Merkel a annoncé mercredi 5 mai un renforcement de ses objectifs climatiques. Un effort notable pour la première économie d’Europe et la sixième émettrice de gaz à effet de serre mondiale, motivée par une décision de justice sans précédent et la popularité des Grünen.
Angela Merkel restera-t-elle dans les annales comme la « chancelière du climat » ? À cinq mois de sa retraite politique, la cheffe d’État allemande doit défendre dans l’après-midi du (...)
The Conference on the Future of Europe is an exercise in democracy, and at the same time, the main theme of the Conference is European democracy. But the problem is broader: democracy itself is in crisis, write Herman Van Rompuy and Žiga Turk. One of the reasons is that citizens are facing threats such as unemployment, financial uncertainty, irregular migration, climate change, inequalities, terrorism, COVID pandemic and others. They feel insufficiently protected on one hand and powerless on the other.
The action plan for a European Pillar of Social Rights will mark the next decade of European policies, European Commission advisor on social rights José António Vieira da Silva has said.
Speaking to EURACTIV’s partner Lusa, Vieira da Silva explained that the action plan the European Commission presented on Thursday details the instruments to realise the principles that guide the EU bloc’s social policy, approved by EU leaders at the 2017 Social Summit in Sweden.
The European Commission held an extensive public consultation, in which it received “hundreds or thousands of contributions”, in addition to debates among countries and in the European Parliament.
The EU executive also took into account a Eurobarometer survey on the problems identified by European citizens and which “confirms the high priority people give to the social dimension”.
For the past 15 years, the engine driving the constitutional development of the European Union has stalled. However today, the discussion on reforming the Stability and Growth Pact, the aftermath of Brexit, and the opening of the Conference on the Future of Europe could kickstart it once more. The conference has so far got off to a lacklustre start. Despite high expectations and much fanfare, it risks being another missed opportunity unless it lives up to its promise to heed the voices of citizens. But if used wisely, this exercise has the potential to deepen the accountability and representation at the heart of the EU’s constitutional order. For the road to European democracy is long and winding.
En España hay 33 entidades de estas características, ocho de ellas en la Comunitat Valenciana, frente a las 1.750 de Alemania, las 700 en Dinamarca, unas 500 en Países Bajos ó 70 en Francia
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Faced with the convergence of economic, social, political and environmental crises, the importance of the public sector has been rediscovered on a global scale. The article offers a review of the evolution of political and academic debates on public ownership in general and public services provision in particular over the last decades, with emphasis on the energy sector.
This policy paper by the Jacques Delors Institute, aims at drawing lessons from the French movement of the Yellow Vests for EU climate policy. It argues that Yellow Vests were not against the carbon price or climate action per se, they were against socially-unfair climate policy. The overall legitimacy and efficiency of the EU Green Deal would be strengthened if the polluter-pays principle is applied consistently, and if climate policies take into account people’s differentiated capabilities and responsibilities in the face of the climate crisis. The just transition is a narrow path that jointly addresses the climate and social emergencies and calls for renewed governance to better take into account daily realities of all citizens. If an EU carbon price on heating and road transport is eventually charged on EU citizens, mitigating risks of social backlash would require the adoption of : socially-fair price signals (e.g. remove exemptions for businesses, industry or aviation), more ambitious regulations (high Minimum Energy Performance Standards for existing buildings and CO2 standards for cars), adequate financing and technical assistance (sufficiently funded and frontloaded Social Climate Fund), and a more inclusive governance (mandate and support involvement of all stakeholders in the energy transition decision-making, include strong multi-level governance in the Social Climate Fund). These recommendations hold with or without ETS2 but become all the more important if ETS2 is adopted. Beyond the need to avoid social unrest, the “Fit for 55” climate package is above all a unique opportunity to implement a socially-just transition that would alleviate existing carbon inequalities, hence strengthening the EU social cohesion and future resilience.
Democratic Public Ownership combines solidarity economy principles around democratic governance, equity, subsidiarity, and sustainability with the benefits of collective ownership in its widest, most holistic sense.
With so much happening around COP26, we wanted to ground ourselves in what communities are doing, day in, day out, to build a better future. There is so much creativity, energy and impact in these local initiatives, decision-makers could learn a thing or two, not least about what is possible when we come together with the starting point that things can and need to be done differently.
Protests, citizens’ assemblies, local referendums and mutual aid groups are pushing back against attacks on civil society
Climate activism has become increasingly synonymous with rebellion. International groups like Zero Hour and Extinction Rebellion create images of huge crowds of people protesting and raising awareness about the climate crisis.
Guerrilla gardening is the act of cultivating plants in a public place, usually in a spot that is not otherwise being cared for, often with the aim of improving the surroundings and protecting the environment. It has a range of benefits from improving biodiversity to helping to keep temperatures low.
More than any other European institution, the European Parliament bears the responsibility for nurturing the development of a truly trans-European citizenry. The path to building this European political and public sphere is riddled with pitfalls, created by both the EU’s political ecosystem and national political actors. Past, present, and potential future initiatives are promising, but they must be matched with sufficient political will and ambition.
Almost two decades since euros first began circulating, the EU is preparing for the May 2021 launch of the Conference on the Future of Europe. For too long, conversations on the future of European democracy and the future of the eurozone have been held separately. This is a vital opportunity to bridge the two, argues Edouard Gaudot. The euro has survived thanks to short-term fixes such as the EU’s pandemic recovery fund, but unless the eurozone is made sustainable and reconciled with national constitutions and democracies, the most critical link in the EU’s chain will remain weak.
The European Committee of the Regions, together with the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN) and the city of Gdańsk, announced today, at the presence of Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson , the creation of the Mayor Paweł Adamowicz Award. The award - named after Paweł Adamowicz, mayor of Gdańsk and member of the CoR, murdered in 2019 - will honour those who fight for freedom and solidarity, and against intolerance, oppression and xenophobia.
The new US administration offers the opportunity for a reboot of transatlantic relations, especially in relation to civil society. The calls and grievances expressed by Women’s movements, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the climate generation resonate strongly in both Europe and the US. These movements are central actors in a potential reconfiguration of the EU-US relationship. Their diverse and participatory nature, as well as the commitment to justice they embody, could form the foundation for building a new transatlantic narrative.
Le 24 février dernier, nous avons invité Antoine Foucault, directeur de la coordination de l’innovation à la Région Occitanie, et Chloé Guillemot, chargée de mission dialogue et mise en débat à Nantes Métropole, à partager avec nos adhérent.es leur expériences des conventions citoyennes organisées par ces deux collectivités pionnières. Deux témoignages précieux, à l’heure où les conventions citoyennes ont le vent en poupe, au niveau national comme au niveau local …
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