Equality by lot

CEPS is “a think tank and forum for debate on EU affairs”, founded in Brussels in 1983. CEPS has a project it calls Ideas Lab whose aim is “to provide a high-level intellectual forum for exchanges concerning the wide range of current and pressing issues faced by the EU”. In this forum, Kalypso Nicolaidis, chair of global Affairs at the New Florence School of transnational governance at the European University Institute in Florence, is proposing to set up a permanent allotted EU citizen assembly.

Nicolaidis writes:

Why Citizens’ Panels haven’t quite cut it…

For optimists, [the EU “deliberative wave”] can be considered a turning point. There are good reasons to hope that introducing European Citizens’ Panels in the EU’s modus operandi is part of a new dynamic and are here to stay. But even if this were the case, how can we speak of a democratic revival through citizen engagement if the very thing that was supposed to kickstart it has been largely unnoticed and/or ignored by the wider public?

Above all, the panels failed to reach the wider public because they’ve been largely insulated from ongoing political dynamics (e.g. in national parliaments, the media, social movements). They resemble mega focus groups rather than ‘the people’ in action. The stakes and their impact on actual policies remains opaque, as noted by citizens themselves in a letter to the EP’s petition committee.

… and why a Standing Citizens’ Assembly would

Various commentators and organisations, from Bertelsmann to CTOE and the Democratic Odyssey, have offered reasons as to why a permanent Standing Citizens’ Assembly could be a desirable change in the eyes of ordinary citizens. For one, this body would be radically more visible than the current and upcoming EU panels and would thus empower citizens and civil society organisations through its deliberative, monitoring, and mobilising functions.

A permanent assembly, as opposed to ad hoc panels, connected to and embedded in both the EU institutional policymaking machinery and the public sphere would become a true fixture of the EU landscape – both as an independent space within that landscape and as a source of sunlight shining onto the whole EU edifice.

Filed under: Academia, Proposals, Sortition |