Les citoyens veulent avoir leur mot à dire dans les politiques européennes[en][de] 

The French and Dutch "no" votes to the draft EU Constitution in 2005 prompted the Commission to launch a "Plan D" (for democracy, dialogue and debate) in response to the institutional crisis. The White Paper on a European Communication Policy , presented by the Commission in February 2006, aimed to tackle citizens' increasing lack of trust in the EU project.

One of the main objectives of the Plan D projects was to show that elements of participatory democracy can play a role at EU level, despite policital, cultural and practical difficulties.

Following their engagement in the grass-roots debates organised by the six projects across the EU, citizens met in Brussels on 7-9 December to convey their 27 recommendations to the European institutions in an open letter.

Citizens sent out their recommendations to EU leaders meeting in Lisbon and Brussels this week to sign the EU's new Treaty and hold their regular year-end European summit meeting.

The results stem from the six Plan D projects - including debates, consultations and polls throughout the EU - organised by the European Movement International, the King Baudouin Foundation, Notre Europe, Deutsche Gesellschaft, European House Budapest and CENASCA-CISL over the last year.

Citizens want to be better involved and demanded the EU be put on national curricula for schools and universities. They also seek more "direct participation" through regular consultations, debates and public hearings. This call was endorsed by Communication Commissioner Margot Wallström, who spoke out in favour of organising "citizen summits" in parallel to the regular European summits, where EU leaders set out the main political direction for the Union.

Speaking at the Plan D concluding conference on 7-9 December, Wallström stressed that "public debate is vital" for European democracy. "It is the lifeblood of democracy, but also requires a dialogue between the people and the policymakers. Representative democracy needs to be supported by deliberative and participatory democracy."

Citizens have very concrete ideas of what the EU should be doing. For instance, in the area of social and cohesion policy, people want the Union to "fight the black market, reduce salary gaps, promote gender equality and ease unemployment". Moreover, citizens recognise migration as "one of the most pressing issues" to be tackled by the EU. But citizens also speak out in favour of a stronger role for the EU on the world stage, speaking with a "single voice", defending European "social, energy and environmental standards" and promoting free trade and development.

Communication Commissioner and Commission Vice-President Margot Wallström said: "I think that what will surprise leaders who read this paper is that it puts so much emphasis on the social issues, because normally EU political leaders will say that this is not really their competence, but you [the citizens] have a rather strong language." She added that the recommendations should not only be sent to the European Council, but also the European political parties and national parliaments.

President of the European Movement Pat Cox commented: "It is very clear from this group here this weekend that if you open a space for people they are willing to participate even at the level of European complexity. That for me is the biggest thing I will take away, that European citizens are open to Europe."

Slovenian Ambassador to the EU, Igor Sencar, stated: "For the future presidency it is extremely important to receive the messages from various fora and especially from the citizens. Because at the end of the day what we jointly, as representatives of the institutions, are doing should always be approved and legitimised by the grass roots as well."

Green MEP Pierre Jonckheer said that the view that representative and participatory democracy were complementary was largely shared by the Parliament. He also underlined that the Parliament was looking forward to the Lisbon Treaty allowing for citizens'. Speaking in personal capacity, he said he regretted that the Lisbon Treaty was seen as a "make up exercise" with the same content as the draft Constitution, leaving out only few provisions, such as on the symbols of the EU.

Jillian van Turnhout, Vice-President of the Economic and Social Committee, also gave her support for taking up the citizen recommendations. However, she expressed a reservation about the recommendation urging EU policy-makers to speak with a single voice on military issues, arguing that this would be contradictory to Irish foreign policy principle of neutrality.

However, some citizens also expressed their frustration about not being able to amend the final recommendations following the workshops that took place during the concluding conference and criticised the lack of flexibility in the process.