The simple logic of bringing a randomly selected group of citizens into one room, to find – after having received a thorough preparation, and with the support of professional facilitators – common ground and joint solutions to complex or highly controversial issues, is time and again fascinating and eye-opening for civil servants, NGO activists and academics.
30 representatives from 12 countries, evenly split across civil society organisations and public administration, met on 25-26 March at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg to learn essential skills from international experts to implement citizens’ assemblies in their home contexts. During the training, which was jointly organised by the Council of Europe and FIDE Europe, participants were guided to develop roadmaps for prospective citizens’ assemblies on topics like nutrition, air pollution, anti-corruption and community cohesion.
One recurring challenge identified by participants and the experienced experts from Ireland, Germany and France was the difficulty of political uncertainty. Even the best-tested plans can come undone when parliaments are dissolved or political parties exchange power. The best way to survive such challenges is for citizens’ assemblies and deliberative innovations to have broad appeal to all actors.
To ensure such a broad appeal, participants learned about how to handle expectation management, communication with media, and proper follow up of the process.
The training was organised following an exchange of views with ambassadors, senior Council of Europe staff and invited experts Art O’Leary (Electoral Commission, Ireland), Felix Arndt (Deutscher Bundestag, Germany) and Marie Claire Martel (Conseil économique social et environnemental, France) on “Deliberative democracy – from ‘nice-to-have’ to essential for thriving democracies”, which was opened by Bjorn Berge, Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe and the Irish Ambassador Caitriona Doyle, and which took place on 24 March in the framework of the Secretary General’s New Democratic Pact and was the first satellite event of the World Forum for Democracy 2025.
In both events, the crucial role of deliberative democracy mechanisms in restoring citizens’ trust in democratic systems and their transformative potential for societies to ensure social coherence became very clear.
Deliberative processes might not resolve all the problems that governments and societies all over Europe are facing, but they are for certain key to enhance, rethink and innovate democratic systems and they have enormous potential for peace building and conflict transformation, dearly needed in the world’s hotspots today.
