Citizen Participation for Better Cohesion Policy

Executive summary

This report shares insights from the 11 pilots of the project “Innovative Implementation of the Partnership Principle in EU Cohesion Policy”, a partnership between the OECD and the European Commission – Directorate General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO) which aimed at experimenting and embedding meaningful citizen participation in the management of Cohesion Policy instruments at the subnational level. Citizen participation in policymaking is identified as a key enabler to reinforce citizens’ trust in public institutions, especially at the local level, as well as a crucial government process to ensure responsive and effective policy delivery. The pilots involved local authorities and civil society organisations (CSOs) from 11 regions and cities across 7 EU countries: Belgium, France, Italy, Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic, and Spain. The OECD - DG REGIO collaboration tested tailored participatory methods in real settings to understand what works in different governance and policy contexts and identify the conditions needed to embed meaningful participation in the Cohesion Policy cycle. The pilots covered a broad range of participatory approaches and policy issues, including:

• Three representative deliberative processes in France, Poland, and Romania. These processes brought together groups of citizens selected through stratified sortition to learn about a public issue, deliberate, and produce recommendations.

• One multistakeholder forum in Spain, designed to involve citizens, stakeholders, experts and civil society in the design and implementation of a policy that directly affects them.

• A student assembly in Italy, adapting deliberative elements to a school environment.

• An ‘ideathon’ in the Slovak Republic, using open innovation methods to identify and prioritise local development projects and initiatives.

• A multistage hybrid consultation in Romania, designed to involve a wide range of citizens and stakeholders in local development programmes.

• Budget consultations in Spain, where citizens, experts and stakeholders contributed to define the orientation of investments.

• A civic monitoring process in Italy, enabling citizens to oversee EU Cohesion Policy-funded projects.

• Capacity building activities in Belgium and Poland to identify meaningful opportunities for participation in the management of EU Cohesion Policy instruments while strengthening internal capacities to design and implement participatory processes tailored to their respective contexts.

Key findings

The pilots demonstrate that citizen participation is a versatile toolbox for Cohesion Policy

The pilots tested a wide range of participatory methodologies applied at various stages of the policy cycle, to inform a variety of policy instruments and documents related to Cohesion Policy, involving both citizens and stakeholders – including by targeting specific groups. Moreover, the pilots covered several policy areas, including transport, access to culture, territorial development and intergenerational fairness. With the support of the OECD and local CSOs, the 11 local authorities designed and implemented tailored participatory processes and ensured policy impact by establishing mechanisms to ‘close the loop’ and by leveraging public communication to provide feedback to participants and to all citizens.

The pilots show that participation can improve policy decisions while strengthening trust and legitimacy

Citizen participation can improve Cohesion Policy by helping local authorities to better identify problems, surface bottlenecks and inefficiencies, and reveal blind spots. It does so by providing authorities with structured channels to tap into citizens’ everyday life experiences as users of infrastructure and services and as participants in public life. Ultimately, policymakers can use these insights to inform decisions that better reflect territorial needs. The 11 pilots demonstrated that, when adequately designed and implemented, citizen participation processes can increase the accuracy and pertinence of policies and services. These experiences also highlighted the potential of involving citizens to increase public acceptability and legitimacy of policy decisions, all while improving public understanding of the role of the EU in fostering territorial development. Finally, participants of various pilots reported an increased sense of agency and confidence that their voice was heard by the government on decisions that mattered to them.

The pilots also demonstrated that challenges to implementing meaningful participation persist

Throughout the implementation of the pilots, public authorities and CSOs faced several concrete challenges, including the lack of political and institutional support, which reduced the likelihood that citizen input would influence decisions, as well as limited or insufficient availability of human and financial resources. Moreover, the experience of the pilots highlighted the difficulties in coordinating participation across the multiple levels of governance that implement Cohesion Policy at the subnational level. Furthermore, citizens face barriers to engagement and might not see the value of participating. Finally, and most importantly, participation is not well integrated into the Cohesion Policy cycle; existing procedures and timelines left little space for meaningful participation, meaning that citizen contributions sometimes arrived too late to shape key choices.

Moving forward, governments should act to embed meaningful participation in Cohesion Policy

Citizen participation is not a “nice-to-have” but a strategic imperative for the legitimacy and success of Cohesion Policy. As the EU discusses the next Multiannual Financial Framework in a context of geopolitical tensions and major transitions, facing increasing expectations for effective public spending, failing to involve citizens meaningfully in setting priorities and shaping policies carries significant political risk. The EU acknowledged meaningful citizen participation as a strategic asset to achieve better policies and strengthen democracy by making it a crucial piece of various initiatives and policy documents, including the European Democracy Shield, the Strategy for Civil Society, and the Recommendation on promoting the engagement and effective participation of citizens and civil society organisations. To embed meaningful participation in Cohesion Policy, governments at all levels should act to: (1) strengthen the preconditions to meaningful participation, including legal, policy frameworks and institutional arrangements, (2) enhance institutional capacity to build a culture of participation, (3) strengthen vertical and horizontal coordination, and (4) institutionalise and mainstream participation throughout the Cohesion Policy cycle.

Regarding the immediate next steps, the experience of the 11 pilots suggests two complementary areas of action: (1) moving from experimentation to building and embedding capacities within Managing Authorities so that participation becomes an integral part of the governance of Cohesion Policy; and (2) continuing to expand experimentation at the municipal level as laboratory for democratic innovation to ensure that EU priorities remain rooted in citizens’ priorities.