In light of continuing (and arguably growing) concerns about the EU’s democratic deficit, the European Commission and Parliament have paid more attention to practical questions of engaging citizens in the political process. In particular, they have sponsored a series of experiments (e.g. Ideal-EU; Europolis; European Citizens Consultation) that have engaged citizens in a variety of different ways. More recently, the Commission proposed the new European Citizens Initiative that will provide a mechanism for petitioning at the European level. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the contrasting democratic qualities of these different designs and the extent to which they might open up new forms of citizen engagement in Europe.
