Searching for a True ‘EU Demos’: Analysing the Citizens’ Consultations in the Future of Europe Debate

The national consultations on the future of the EU never specified whether the assemblies sought to contribute to public awareness and offer opportunities for engagement or rather whether the intent was to give representative samples of the population with an opportunity to make proposals for new policies at EU level. However, pointing to lack of clarity about the methods and goals of the national consultations on Europe risks of reifying them for the sake of the analysis. We conceive these consultations as the result of the transfer of a multifaceted discourse on citizens direct participation occurring both at the transnational EU level and in several Member states. Under the appearance of a common discourse and practice there are indeed different logics whose ambivalence contributes to nurture the success of the said procedure. At the European level, the first one is a discourse originating in transnational bureaucracies around the notions of "better regulation" and "smart regulation" (OECD and the European Commission) and coming together around a common set of methodologies and understandings in 2019 (more technocratic in character). The second one, we argue that strongly influenced by the former but also by political regeneration agendas, is the notion of "bringing citizens closer" that has inspired democratic experiments across democracies since two decades with a characteristic appeal to direct involvement in public affairs (participation as the pillar of democratic governance). Finally the third stream is related to what we call the "populist moment", a claim that political mediators – political representatives, civil society or journalists, to name a few – are an obstacle to the formation of the genuine popular will, and the need to involve the ordinary citizens.