Can a Complementary ECA Democratise European Democracy?
Jelena Dzankic (European University Institute)
Kalypso Nicolaidis advocates for a permanent European Citizens’ Assembly (ECA) to complement the European Parliament. She puts forward the argument that this proposal would restore ‘democratic ownership’ across the transnational European space, challenged by mounting populism and the return of the far right. Yet can a rotating and itinerant ECA without a clear mandate save European democracy?
Like Richard Bellamy, I applaud the boldness and sophistication of the proposal and very much agree with the basic premises behind the idea. Representative democracy has failed to deliver its promise of independent, equal and just governance. With limited deliberative input in the policy process, representative democracy has disconnected citizens from decision-making, turning them into mere recipients of elite policy decisions. This disconnect is visible at all levels of democratic governance across the European Union (EU) and even more so at the supranational level. To address it, democratic innovation and thinking outside the box is essential. This is what I like about Nicolaidis’s proposal. At the same time, as a scholar focusing on comparing political institutions, I am trying to imagine how this would work in practice. The proposal is rather unclear about three fundamental questions essential for understanding its practical value – the who, the how, and the what questions.
Who? Those vicious technicalities of eligibility and sortition
In her proposal, Nicolaidis puts forward the idea that the ECA would be constituted by 300 persons, a third of whom would be substituted every six months. These 300 people would be assembled by sortition, on the basis of a “purely random technique […] chosen to create the base pool from which willing participants will be extracted by applying criteria that will create a sufficiently diverse assembly”. Other contributors to this forum (Sandra Seubert, Richard Bellamy) have already discussed the normative implications of lottery-style sortition. Bellamy has highlighted that a person’s chances of participating in the ECA are indeed roughly similar to winning a lottery. But beyond that, there are very practical issues related to both the base pool and the selection method.
First, the proposal is unclear on eligibility for the base pool. Nicolaidis refers to the European population, but this term is rather elusive, as it does not specify whether only EU citizens and holders of long-term residence permits would be included, or perhaps also various other categories of residents. Eurostat has reported that 27.1 million third-country nationals lived in the EU on 1 January 2023. Only 10 million of them have the legal status of long-term residents, while the rest reside in the EU on a different type of permit. Some of those 17.1 million third-country nationals, like myself, have lived in the EU for decades but – for different reasons – cannot access long-term resident status. A country of 17.1 million inhabitants would be the size of the Netherlands. Hence the question of whether those actually living in the EU would be recognised as having stakes in such a democratic exercise is an important one. It is perhaps more normatively desirable than including on certain issues, as Nicolaidis recommends, external EU citizens who possess EU passports but do not live in the Union. In view of our previous forum on the ‘weaponisation of citizenship’, this option would be particularly problematic for those countries that instrumentalise ethnic kinship for supporting nationalist projects (Croatia, Romania), cementing the rule of authoritarian leaders (Hungary), or destabilising neighbouring countries (Bulgaria).
Eligibility for the base pool also raises questions about age thresholds, particularly in view of Nicolaidis’ suggestion of overrepresenting the youths. As already noted by Seubert, the 27 Member States of the EU operate different electoral regimes with different rules for the exercise of active and passive voting rights. The threshold for casting a vote is commonly 18 years (16 in Austria, Belgium, Germany and Malta, 17 in Greece for EP elections). In a similar vein, to stand as a candidate in EP elections, some countries require candidates to have reached 21 (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Ireland, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Slovakia), 23 (Romania) or 25 (Italy and Greece) years of age. While perhaps reaching the candidacy age may not be necessary for taking part in a consultative citizens’ assembly, the question of how old one should be in order to be a part of innovative democratic processes should not be overlooked. Equally, the potential inclusion of prisoners, individuals with cognitive impairments, and vulnerable groups all warrant substantive reflection in the proposal.
Second, the sortition method remains unclear, especially as regards who the ‘willing participants’ from the base pool would be. Would the entire pool receive sufficient information to be able to decide if they are willing to take part in the deliberation? How would that information be distributed, and who would distribute it? How would they confirm their consent to take part in the ECA, and whether and at what point could they withdraw it? Again, these rather technical questions reflect the basic contestations over democracy, about the ‘will’ to be consulted in collective decision-making, about rights that an individual has as the creator and recipient of democratic processes, and the responsibility of institutions vis-à-vis citizens.
A different set of questions emerges when it comes to choosing criteria for the ‘random’ selection that ‘will create a sufficiently diverse assembly’. An assembly of 300 people drawn from a population a million times as large will likely be representative of the macro-elements of diversity (e.g., Member State, gender, age, race). It is, however, unlikely to guarantee substantive diversity along different axes (e.g., socio-economic status, disability, sexual orientation, religion) and their intersections. In her contribution, Nicolaidis carefully avoids unpacking the tacky issue of diversity, calling for democratic deliberation on the matter. The peril is that, in a community constituted of 27 demoi, the only consensus on the matter might replicate the format of the existing European institutions.
How? Itineration and rotation – a costly exercise?
An itinerant assembly is an interesting idea and, just as Alvaro Oleart, I very much appreciate the conversations and the achievements of the Democratic Odyssey project. However, I cannot help but wonder what is the value-added for the local community of hosting 300 pre-selected persons for six months (besides the economic gains from hosting). How would the ECA engage with the place and the people that host it at different points, and what would be the essence of this exchange? In other words, does the place matter, and how and by whom will the decision on this be made? The host city will need to have the necessary infrastructure for this exercise. This is likely to exclude the often-overlooked remote rural areas or poorer regions, again running the risk of perpetuating existing inequalities, including urban-rural and East-West divides. The choice of the place will also have financial implications for an already potentially expensive exercise.
I also wonder how the exchanges among participants will take place. Presumably, people will be drawn from different corners of the EU, but the whole idea rests on the premise that they will be able to understand one another. A 2019 study of the EP noted that in 2016, “over one-third (35.4%) of adults in the EU-28 did not know any foreign languages. A similar proportion (35.2 %) declared that they knew one foreign language, while just over one-fifth (21 %) said they knew two foreign languages”. Cutting out over a third of the European population from the exercise because they are monolingual would be directly in conflict with the spirit of the ECA: bringing in the overlooked voices in discussions about Europe-wide political issues. To be truly inclusive, the ECA would, therefore, require a massive budget for interpretation. As a matter of comparison, in 2024, the EP spent 53.48 million euros on the simultaneous translation of its meetings into 24 official EU languages. Given the structure of the ECA and its inclusion of minority peoples and their languages, enabling meaningful communication will be a daunting endeavour (and expense).
What? Input is precious, but output and support matter too
The input of citizens as key stakeholders in a polity is invaluable. The fact that this input has been limited in representative democracies is possibly one of the reasons for the ‘democratic disconnect’ and, more generally, citizens’ disenchantment with this form of governance. Nicolaidis’ proposal does seek to address this issue, but it is unclear what the outputs of the ECA would be and how they could inform European decision-making. In this regard, I very much support Daniel Freund’s four points – thematic focus, institutional/political backing, transparency, and backup. While the latter two are engrained in the baseline concept of the ECA, I believe that the first two warrant some attention. I imagine issues discussed in the ECA would focus around the EP agenda, but I would again agree with Freund and Brett Hennig that a broad thematic focus will likely lead to rushed and vague deliberations. Hence, what would be the topics of deliberation and who would decide on which concrete issues should be debated?
This decision then also calls for a reflection of the possible outputs of the deliberation and their linkage to the existing political processes. Nicolaidis presents a case against making any of the outputs of ECA deliberations binding. Cristina Lafont and Nadia Urbinati convincingly unpack why they shouldn’t be. However, it is not quite clear how the decisions or initiatives that result from deliberations would be taken up by European institutions. Will the MEPs and their teams refer to such decisions and initiatives? How would they get salience amidst the growing focus on thematic expert knowledge utilised by various institutions? If the ECA is to have a meaningful impact, some of these issues would need to be addressed.
So What?
Nicolaidis’s idea is bold, and reflects her passion for democratic innovations, for the idea and ideal of a democratic society. And while I have been critical of some of its practical aspects, I believe we need to debate different visions of democracy for the future. Deliberative exercises are certainly a part of this vision but suffer from problems of scale and limited impact. Deliberative experiments have so far had the strongest effect when localised and focused on a specific issue. Their impact on upper levels of governance, strategic decisions and high politics has so far been limited. For this reason, on top of the concerns expressed above, I am a bit hesitant about the ECA. Democracy as a governance system definitely needs an upgrade in which citizens’ voices will resonate in political decisions, an upgrade in which citizens will ‘claim’ and ‘own’ democratic processes, but it is not clear that an ECA will achieve a breakthrough in this regard.
In a transnational European political space, perhaps we should think about using new digital technologies more creatively. At the most basic level, utilising a digital platform might lower the financial costs and ecological footprint of deliberative experiments compared to itinerant and rotating assemblies. It would allow for broader participation, particularly if acquiring skills to use such a platform were to become a part of the existing digital education endeavours aimed at enhancing digital literacy of EU citizens. It would also allow multiple policy debates to take place at the same time, and artificial intelligence tools could be used for transcription and translation. At a next stage, such platforms could be used to develop flexible modes of participation and representation in the spirit of the ‘liquid democracy’ experiments, where participants could decide – in view of the topic – whether to participate, delegate to experts, or seek input from the community before making that decision. We can think of many other options, such as apps, especially if the idea is to involve youths. In other words, digital technologies have already ‘democratised’ access to information, education, and communication, to say the least. Could they also help to democratise democracy?