EU Democracy Reform Observatory

The EU Democracy Reform Observatory is a project of the European Policy Centre, which aims to foster the debate on the future of the European integration process. It is dedicated to advancing the debate on the modernisation of European democracy and the reform of an enlarging EU. It aims to develop concrete recommendations to strengthen the legitimacy, inclusiveness, and effectiveness of democratic governance and decision-making within the EU.

In a context set and shaped by the Conference on the Future of Europe and the watershed moment of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Observatory seeks to:

• Support via analysis: with our analytical input we support EU institutions and decision-makers with fresh and outside-of-the-box ideas on how to improve existing citizen participation instruments and overcome political and institutional hurdles to citizen participation in the EU.
• Advance discussion: through our ‘EU Democracy Conversations’, series of interactive on-line discussions with EU and national policy-makers, politicians and experts we stimulate a meaningful discussion on the role of participatory democracy in the EU, its connection to representative democracy, and better instruments of citizen participation.
• Inform via research: in our comparative in-depth expert study on the positions of the EU Member States on the EU reform we will reflect on how proposals for EU reform, prompted by the Zeitenwende, address the broader state of European democracy.