EU officials have attempted to "do deliberative democracy", Boucher says, allowing the public to voice their views on European policy matters, but he is far from impressed with the quality of these efforts.
Policymakers need to think "more critically about recent and future experiments that present themselves as 'deliberative'," says the European Climate Foundation director, calling on EU officials to consider "what effect" their attempts at deliberative democracy have had.
The working paper argues that although official policies have "adopted language borrowed from the deliberative democracy school of thinking," there is a "lack of clarity" regarding the role assigned to deliberating with citizens in the EU policymaking process.
Boucher laments that the EU's deliberative efforts have been too disparate, and warns its institutions of the potential pitfalls of having too many initiatives competing for the limelight.
"Better to organise one quality event per year, linked for instance to a European Council meeting, and focused on a salient, controversial issue, fundamental for the EU's future," advises Boucher.
It is imperative that the EU actively promotes citizens' engagement, he argues, asserting that "quality deliberation that serves European democracy's everyday needs does not necessarily occur naturally" and should therefore be organised by the European institutions.
To this end, Boucher calls for the establishment of a European Observatory for Democracy and Opinion to channel the efforts and combine the resources of the EU institutions in their discourse with European citizens.
"A key recommendation is not to spread the EU support too thinly," says Boucher, concluding that the bloc could retain the attention of its citizens by focusing on one high-quality, high-impact initiative or event per year.
