What is eParticipation?

Democracy and democratic processes in Europe are facing a number of challenges as people have lost interest and confidence in the way their countries are being governed. At the EU level in particular we are facing major political challenges of fighting the perceived democratic deficit, low voter turnout in the European elections and lack of citizen awareness or interest in EU affairs as well as poor understanding of the EU decision-making process.

At the same time, the development and wide use of powerful new ICT applications (e.g. social networking technologies) is transforming the way citizens and civil society interact, debate and participate in public life. These new tools have enormous potential to enhance decision-making processes by involving large numbers of EU citizens.

ICTs provide a range of tools which can give citizens easier access to information about what decisions are being taken which affect their lives and how the decision-making process works. They can also help foster communication and interaction between politicians and government bodies on the one side, and citizens on the other. Decision-makers and drafters of legislation can also benefit from developments in ICT by facilitating their work and, by better understand the concerns of their constituents, improving the quality of legislation.

In recent years, the EU and its Member States have worked to enhance and boost eParticipation. Under the Fifth and Sixth Framework Programmes for Research (FP5 and FP6), which ran from 1998 to 2006, the Commission funded around 20 ICT research projects in this area. More are expected to be funded under the Seventh Framework Programme.

The eParticipation Preparatory Action was initiated by the European Parliament and launched in 2006 to support pilot projects in real-life environments that demonstrate the use of Information and Communication Technologies to bolster citizens’ participation in democratic decision-making.  The trial projects are using new digital technologies to improve the drafting of legislative texts and to help citizens have easier access to information about proposals for legislation. They provide citizens with the tools to express their opinions and to give them the opportunity to discuss, input and interact with decision-makers. In total 21 projects have been funded, of which 15 are still ongoing.