@book{4371,
	author = {Comité Económico y Social de las Comunidades Europeas‏},
	title = {EU public consultations in the digital age Enhancing the role of the EESC and civil society organisations},
	publisher = {Visits and Publications},
	year = {2017},
	note = {EU online public consultations are used as a tool to foster transparency at EU level and offer an opportunity to both civil society and European citizens to participate in the EU decision-making process. They are generally run by the European Commission, which tries to legitimate its actions and reduce the democratic deficit by taking into account the opinions of stakeholders and citizens. In EU online public consultations, the exercise is facilitated by the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), which allows stakeholders and citizens to directly express their opinions on specific topics and engage in an interactive dialogue. As a consequence of the potential for new technologies to enable more direct participation and foster citizens’ civic engagement at EU level without the intervention of intermediary or representative organisations, civil society organisations are called upon to rethink their traditional role as mediators between citizens and EU institutions. In the case of EU online public consultations, however, they can still play a crucial role in improving the consultation processes. The present study aims to provide an analysis of current consultation practices at the European Commission as well as to examine the potential of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) as an intermediary body in reaching out to citizens.},
	url = {https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/a3e564c1-cf37-11e7-a7df-01aa75ed71a1/language-en/format-PDF/source-51173942},
}