Europe and Ireland promote use of citizens’ assemblies

The use of ‘citizens assemblies’ to help governments around the world tackle difficult issues impacting society could receive a boost in March, when countries attend US President Joe Biden’s Summit for Democracy.

The meeting will discuss a set of shared international commitments and a declaration that have been developed by the European Commission and the Irish Government, supported by the newDemocracy Foundation. Together, this group – known as The Cohort for Deliberative Democracy and Citizens’ Assemblies – aims to bring together national governments to agree on a single set of realistic commitments, which participating governments will be invited to sign. 

According to a Commission spokesperson, the main principle for governments or organisations joining the Cohort is to commit to the declaration. The shared international commitments may still be refined as part of the collaborative work with incoming members. 

Participating governments will be able to select actions from a set of options depending on their situation and needs.

The Cohort was launched earlier this month by the vice-president of the European Commission, Dubravka Šuica. It is one of the multi-stakeholder groups contributing to the Summit for Democracy, where it is hoping to engage a wide coalition of like-minded governments. 112 countries are expected to participate. The Cohort is currently asking for expressions of interest to join from these governments, as well as from non-governmental and civil society organisations.  

It will then work to find practical and innovative approaches to “deliberative democracy” in line with its declaration. This includes:

• Building a general understanding of successful practices in deliberative democracy, such as citizens’ assemblies, including at national level;
• Supporting national governments in their work; and
• Creating connections to foster further debates and conversations on deliberative democracy, beyond the Cohort and the Summit.

The European Commission is building experience in engaging citizens, based on its Conference for the Future of Europe. It also has set up a Competence Centre on Participatory and Deliberative Democracy. 

Speaking at the launch of the Cohort, Art O’Leary, secretary general to the President of Ireland and CEO of Ireland’s Electoral Commission and Citizens’ Assemblies, said that there is, “a hunger among citizens to get involved and a hunger among politicians to get citizens involved.”

Ireland has had some notable successes running citizens assemblies. One is currently running on biodiversity loss. Mr O’Leary noted that there had been a huge response when over 20,000 households were invited to take part - with 2,500 people “putting their hands up”. The expectation had been that around 1,000 would respond. 

He added that the reasons people were keen to get involved split evenly between those who were interested in the issue, those that were keen to do public service, and those who believed citizens assemblies are the best way to get hard jobs done.