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The European Economic and Social Committee – A transnational bridge

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) is one of the oldest EU institutions, established by the Treaty of Rome in 1957. The Committee is composed of 329 appointed members from all EU Member States, representing employers, employees and a third group representing various activities such as farmers, consumer groups and professional organisations.

With its focus as an advisory body on democratic issues, the EESC's role has been strengthened recently, with it becoming the key bridge 'between European civil society and the EU institutions'. In other words, the EESC today offers an important support infrastructure for active citizenship and participatory democracy.

The ECI at the EESC

During the initial period of the European Citizens' Initiative, the EESC had been pioneering an informal support infrastructure to active citizens across the EU including general advice, translation assistance and the holding of hearings at the EESC for ECIs in the making. Most of these services are now part of the regulatory obligations required by EU institutions such as the European Parliament and the European Commission.

As the most experienced citizens' support institution of the Union, the EESC continues to provide information, guidance and platforms to civil society organisations and ad-hoc groups of active citizens engaged in making Europe a more social and democratic place in the world.

Since 2012, the EESC has hosted the annual conference, the European Citizens' Initiative Day (known in short as the ECI Day) in Brussels, offering an open and free meeting point to ECI professionals and activists across Europe.

Additionally, the EESC invites successful or nearly successful ECIs to its plenary sessions and ongoing ECIs to its section and group meetings as a contribution to increasing dialogue between citizens and the EU institutions and to making the initiatives better known in the European public sphere. These invitations included the Ban Glyphosate (2017), Minority SafePack (2018), Stop Extremism (2019), End the Cage Age and Eat ORIGINal. Unmask your Food (2020) initiatives.

In addition to this electronic version of the EESC European Democracy Passport, a printed version is available in 23 languages as well as a number of other publications and services.

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As a citizen of the European Union, you are quite literally not alone. There are more than 450 million people like you. Nor are you alone when it comes to getting government and civil society support for making your voice heard. Among the many resources available, we recommend the following transnational support, guidance and media across Europe.

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European Citizens’ Initiative

  • The European Citizens' Initiative Forum is an online collaborative platform that offers support to citizens at different stages of organising a European Citizens' Initiative. The forum provides practical information on the ECI and allows people to discuss EU policies and potential initiatives. It also helps them in the early organisational stages, from finding partners in other countries to seeking expert advice on campaigning, fundraising and legal issues. The objective is to foster interaction between potential organisers, citizens and experts on the topic of the ECI. The ECI Forum is a service offered by the European Commission, and is run by the European Citizen Action Service (ECAS) in cooperation with Democracy International.

  • The European Citizens' Initiative Help Desk gives advice and support to citizens and organisations across the EU considering starting an initiative. This independent Help Desk is hosted by the Association for the European Citizens' Initiative established by former and ongoing ECI organisers. The Help Desk supports individual ECIs with online signature collection software (until the end of 2022, when there will be only one central collection system provided by the European Commission), campaigning, fundraising and legal advice.

  • The ECI Online Library. The European Citizens' Initiative has an interesting history going back to the early years of the European Union in the 1990s (after its formal transformation from economic cooperation to political union). The Initiative and Referendum Institute Europe, which was established in 2001 to assist with the development of the ECI, has gathered the most important publications online and – on request – can guide you to further resources.

Participatory Democracy

  • The European Parliament's Citizens' App is an online application for smartphones offering information on topics and locations of interest to you. It informs you about events taking place near you; adds your favourites to your personal calendar; shows you the best route via your favourite maps application; provides multimedia content such as videos, podcasts and slideshows; is searchable and shareable, and can be customised and ranked. Available on Apple Store and Google Play in 24 languages.

  • The Democracy.Community is a transnational network of democracy supporters hosted by Democracy International. The platform is open for everybody for informational, educational and networking purposes and offers participatory stories and event opportunities. You can register yourself/your organisation/institution and create a democracy supporter profile.

  • The European Citizen Action Service is an international organisation with pan-European membership. Its mission is to empower citizens in order to create a more inclusive and stronger European Union by promoting and defending citizens' rights and developing and supporting mechanisms to increase citizens' and citizen organisations' democratic participation in, and engagement with, the EU.

  • The Participo platform is provided by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development). Here you can find all kinds of information around the research and practice of participatory and direct democracy at all political levels. The platform is part of the OECD's effort to explore the paradigm changes underway from traditional representative government towards modern representative democracy.

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Citizens and journalism

Citizens and journalism

  • Euractiv links active European citizenship with professional online journalism and offers stories, opinions, analysis and background information about everything going on politically across Europe – in 13 languages: English, French, German, Italian, Czech, Bulgarian, Greek, Croatian, Polish, Romanian, Serbian, Spanish and Slovenian.
  • Reporting on modern participatory and direct democracy is the main task of the #deardemocracy platform at Swissinfo, the international service of the Swiss Broadcasting Company. It offers news, opinions and background on active citizenship and participatory democracy globally – in 10 languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Portuguese, Italian and Japanese.
Copyright © European Union 2021 | Last update: 01/06/2021
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