Thematic Introduction

According to Article 11 (2) TEU in the current version of the Treaty of Lisbon, „the institutions shall maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue with representative associations and civil society." This provision raises at least two questions:

• Which are the „epresentative associations" and the members of „ivil society" referred to?
• Which are the means and tools that are needed to realise such a dialogue?

In addition, already in the past, and without this specific provision, some sort of dialogue had been maintained between at least the main institutions and some representative associations of civil society. In particular, already from the very beginning of the (now) European Union the „conomic and Social Committee" and, some decades later, also the Committee of Regions had been established. So the crucial question is now:

• Which specific value is added by this provision?

This added value could be a legal one (realising that the content of the said provisions is going beyond what had been mandatory in the past), but also a more political one, calling the partners of the dialogue to improve their communication.This project aims to get answers to those questions with the clear goal to contribute, if necessary, to an improvement of communication between institutions and civil society (understood in a large sense, i.e. including the „epresentative associations"). Given the current factual background of more than 500 millions of citizens of the European Union, however, it is suggested, as a starting premiss, that meaningful participation of citizens on a Union-wide level would, necessarily, imply a specific political self-restraint of Union legislation, as required by a strict interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity (leaving to the Union only those questions to decide which cannot be treated better on a lower level) and of the principle of proportionality (respecting as far as ever possible the autonomy of the individual).

Download the complete document.