Our input to the Commission’s stakeholder guidelines
The European Commission has consulted with the public on their Stakeholder Consultation guidelines. Social Platform has responded with the following key points:
- We welcome a strengthened stakeholder consultation while recognising that more is needed to reach a true civil dialogue with decision makers. Civil dialogue is a key part of participatory democracy
- Our European NGOs need sufficient time to consult with members on national, regional and local level in order to be able to give meaningful inputs based on the experience of people affected on the ground
- Our experience shows that providing feedback to stakeholders on how their contributions have been taken into account, and if not why not, is the weakest point of the consultation process and where there is a high potential for improvement
- We encourage the guidelines to be applied as widely as possible and to all forms of consultation processes, including e.g. on the European Semester and the European Migration Forum
Civil dialogue is a tool of participatory democracy. Its ultimate objective is to reach decisions that are close to the general interest and that improve decision making. To achieve this, civil dialogue aims to put forward the views and needs of organised civil society, particularly the voice of those excluded from the ‘official’ political arena.
Overall, we welcome the initiative by the Commission to develop Stakeholder Consultation guidelines and, properly implemented, they can be a valuable tool in order to strengthen the quality, scope and targeting of the consultations.
Social Platform believes that consultation is only a part of civil dialogue. Consultation is in fact just the second step on a scale from minus one to five that assesses the quality of civil society involvement. Step minus one is exclusion and step five is full partnership. While partnership is not always desirable, – especially for civil society that acts as a watchdog and critical voice – dialogue (step three) should always be an aim. A meaningful dialogue means that civil society is involved in all stages of a policy cycle: agenda-setting, policy definition/decision making, implementation, evaluation and reformulation. It includes EU institutions a) accountability and responsiveness, b) political will and openness to make a difference, c) transparency and clarity, d) equality and inclusiveness, e) sustainability and structures, f) recognition of the role of CSOs and g) an on-going process, with involvement at all stages of decision-making.
In 2008, Social Platform developed a position on ‘How to establish an effective dialogue between the EU and civil society organisation’; this includes seven recommendations for European decision makers, as well as recommendations for pan-European networks of social NGOs.
While the central elements are identified by the Stakeholder Consultation guidelines, we find it important that the Commission takes into account the specificity of civil society organisations when defining its strategy. In particularly, the need to give sufficient time for European NGOs to consult with their members on national, regional and local level in order to be able to give meaningful inputs based on grassroots (people affected).
We particularly welcome that the Commission emphasises the need to provide feedback to stakeholders on how their contributions have been taken into account, and if not, why. This is a part of the consultation where our experiences demonstrate clear room for improvement.
