Citizen Engagement Strategies: putting participation in Cohesion policy into practice - Citizen Engagement and Deliberative Democracy Festival, 10th December

DG REGIO participated for a second time in a row in the Citizen Engagement and Deliberative Democracy Festival, organized by the Commission’s Joint Research Centre.  On 10 December 2020, an online debate gathered seven speakers and over 35 participants, mainly from the public sector and civil society organizations to discuss strategies to “put participation in Cohesion policy into practice”. The aim of the session was to inspire and share ways of involving civil society in promoting good governance in the management of Cohesion policy, and to discuss the challenges and capacities needed by public administrations and civil society organizations (CSOs) to collaborate effectively and efficiently in the implementation of EU funds.

Building on the conclusions of High Level Conference “Engaging Citizens for Good Governance in Cohesion policy”, REGIO is already piloting innovative ways of citizen participation Cohesion policy, involving both Managing Authorities and CSOs. Therefore, the event provided an opportunity to present and discuss the first important takeaways from such initiatives. The panel debate counted with citizen participation experts Claudia Chwalisz from OECD’s Open Government Unit, Sandor Lederer (K-Monitor) and Karolis Granickas (Open Contracting Partnership) from civil society organizations, and Francesco Amodeo, Patrick Lavelle, Stefan Appel and Ramses Grande from the European Commission.

The first part of the debate was focused on how to integrate citizen participation in Cohesion policy. Claudia emphasized the importance of political support and new capacities within public administrations to transition from experimentation with citizen participation projects to the establishment of permanent deliberative structures for citizen participation.

Francesco recognized, that a “mind shift” towards citizen participation requires new tools to go beyond stakeholder consultations in the design and implementation of Cohesion programmes. This can start with the identification of new relevant stakeholders representing civil society, such as “environmental partners, non-governmental organizations, and bodies responsible for promoting social inclusion, gender equality and non-discrimination”.

Through a conscious design of the type of participation aspired –information, consultation or engagement-, and its alignment with the preparation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation stages of investments, Managing Authorities can ensure that the engagement process provides an added value in terms of better and locally adapted investment decisions, and increased societal support for initiatives.

At the same time, Managing Authorities need to be aware of and set the right conditions for citizens and CSOs to participate as “equal partners”. Sandor highlighted the skills, time and economic resources needed by civil society to participate effectively in Cohesion investments, and encouraged Managing Authorities to be proactive in providing those. By building on existing initiatives and networks for stakeholder engagement, investing in a long-term partnership between governments, CSOs and citizens, and ultimately by integrating civil society actors in the management of the programmes, Managing Authorities can contribute to capacity building of civil society as a whole, illustrating a co-benefit of citizen participation in regional policy.

Conversely, citizen participation strategies are not a guarantee for success.  It is therefore important to acknowledge the risk of failure as part of a learning-by-doing process. Furthermore, a number of challenges need to be taken into consideration. As Sandor pointed out, it is essential for public actors to set the right expectations for participation processes, and to pay attention to what is said during consultations. A negative example of fake participation led to the halt of a planned cycling route between Budapest and Lake Balaton in Hungary after the authority in charge had ignored the issues that were raised by citizens during the consultation process. As one participant mentioned, creating opportunities for participation is about finding a balance between control and delegation of power to citizenship. While Managing Authorities cannot always implement citizens’ recommendations, it is important to always explain why they did or did not take their recommendations into account.

In their conclusions, all panelists recognized the opportunities for citizen engagement in the next programming period 2021-2027, with REACT-EU, cohesion funds and the Just Transition Fund, as well as through other initiatives such as the Conference on the Future of Europe. Patrick Lavelle presented how REGIO has sponsored a toolkit for youth engagement in the implementation of territorial just transition plans.

To achieve good governance of EU funds, REGIO and its partners need to keep investing in improving the capacities of Managing Authorities and civil society actors to collaborate. As one panelist put it, “the role of Managing Authorities in a participatory process should be creating transparency and equal conditions for all stakeholders, being proactive, and stepping into the facilitator’s role when necessary”. As another one added, “learning about participation is about becoming conscious of the differences between stakeholders, it’s about understanding a different language”.