Building a Stronger Structured Civil Dialogue
Platform of European Social NGOsMarch 2001
Summary and Key Recommendations
The creation of a structured civil dialogue, to complement the existing political and social dialogues, should be an important goal for the reform of European governance.
The European NGO community makes a rich, diverse, and powerful contribution to the development of European society.
European NGOs play an important role in linking the public with the political process, and are key actors in building a structured civil dialogue between citizens and governments.
NGOs should be representative of their mandate, accountable, transparent, and effective. European NGOs and the Commission should together examine ways of elaborating these, and other standards, and NGOs themselves should develop guidelines in this area.
We call for the establishment of a structured civil dialogue between the different Institutions and organised civil society to complement the political and social dialogue, and support the establishment of a Treaty Article, or at the minimum a Council Regulation, establishing a legal base for this dialogue.
We believe that the Economic and Social Committee (ESC) must be reformed if it is to play a role in developing a meaningful civil dialogue, particularly in light of its redefined role within the Treaty of Nice.
Civil society can only play a meaningful role in European Governance if information and documents relating to European decision-making are made available in an open, accessible, and prompt manner to the general public.
The Nice Treaty is inaccessible and incomprehensible to most citizens, and was drafted through a flawed and closed process. We call for the next Treaty revision, in 2004, to be drafted by a public Convention incorporating Parliamentarians and governmental representatives, and which would undertake consultation with organised civil society.
Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission, has announced that a White Paper on European Governance will be published in mid-2001. Speaking to the European Parliament, he stated that this initiative would, ‘propose a new division of labour between the Commission, the other institutions, the Member States and civil society.' (Speech to European Parliament, 15 February 2000)
NGOs working at the European level welcome the launching of a wide debate on governance and democracy by the President of the Commission, particularly in the framework of the preparation of the 2004 Inter-Governmental Conference.
Three distinct forms of dialogue exist at a European level; the political dialogue, the social dialogue, and the civil dialogue. Whilst the first two of these dialogues have a structured format, the third, civil dialogue, does not, although an ad hoc dialogue with the Institutions does exist. We believe that the creation of a structured civil dialogue to complement the political and social dialogues should be one of the essential principles of a reformed governance process. This call for the creation of a structured civil dialogue, however, does not in any way detract from the political dialogue, which has a unique importance. Indeed, the strengthening of the political process is a necessary corollary to the development of a structured civil dialogue.
In this context, this brief paper seeks to outline the value of NGOs, and, as a key part of organised civil society, the role which they can play in the development of new forms of governance at a European level.
I. NGOs, Civil Society, and European Governance
The European NGO community makes a rich, diverse, and powerful contribution to the development of European society.
In our various organisations, we fight for many ideals, causes, and interests. There is heterogeneity to our actions, but there are certain common features to our contributions:
NGOs represent public interests towards decision-makers, channelling concerns, viewpoints and values within the political process.
NGOs ensure the development and implementation of EU policies, by providing expertise to policy-makers, and by identifying new issues which need to be tackled and proposing appropriate measures to address them.
As the Commission has itself acknowledged, ‘European citizens have little sense of ownership over the structures that govern their lives' (‘Shaping the new Europe', COM (2000) 154). NGOs help to reduce the gap between the governing and the governed by awareness raising with the public concerning the purpose, policies, and actions of the European Union.
Furthermore, NGOs can act to reduce the starkness of this ‘governing vs. governed' dichotomy, by encouraging and enabling people to empower and involve themselves in the political processes and decisions which have an impact upon their lives.
NGOs are created by and composed of active members of society, and contribute to building social solidarity, creating community, and fostering social awareness. NGOs thus play an important role in linking the public with the political process, and are key actors in building a structured civil dialogue between citizens and governments.
Furthermore, NGOs are often key service-providers, whether in the form of practical support, information, advice, health and social services, or advocacy.
NGOs also act to set best practices in their specific fields, developing standards indicators, and targets.
Finally, NGOs act as guardians or ‘watch-dogs' of public interests, whether environmental, social, developmental or humanitarian. We monitor and assess the performance of political and economic players upon our areas of interest, and respond to their action or inaction II. The Representativeness of NGOs
When considering the role of NGOs within European governance, there is one issue which is raised more and more often by national governments and European institutions: that of the representativeness of NGOs. The demand for NGOs to be ‘representative' arises in virtually all discussions and policy papers concerned with the relations between NGOs and governments.
As NGOs seek to make an input to policy-making, and to influence the political process, answering the question: ‘for whom do you speak?' is both reasonable and necessary. Yet the answer to this seemingly simple question of identity varies widely between different NGOs, as the following illustrations make clear.
Many NGOs are directly representative of particular groups, whether of other NGOs or of citizens.
All European ‘umbrella' NGOs directly represent their national member organisations or platforms. Similarly, many disability NGOs are run by, and work to represent, persons with disabilities.
Other NGOs advance the interests of those unable to do so themselves.
Human rights NGOs, for example, represent the interests of victims of human rights abuses, many of whom are not in a position to speak for themselves.
Yet more NGOs ‘represent' or advance public interests, ideas, issues or values. Environmental NGOs represent the interests of the environment because it has no voice. With such a diversity of functions, it is impossible to create a single standard of ‘representativeness' which can be used to measure all NGOs. ‘Representativeness' must therefore comprise a judgement, made on qualitative and quantitative grounds, of the extent to which NGOs represent their mandate. Representativeness alone is not a sufficiently precise or appropriate standard to measure good NGO practice. We believe that NGOs should be judged on the basis of their transparency, accountability, representativeness, efficiency and effectiveness in carrying out their mandate – all qualities which are identified as necessary for good governance in the Work Programme for the White Paper on Governance.
We therefore propose that the Secretariat General of the Commission should, together with European NGOs, examine the criteria applied in relation to NGOs in the framework of the structured civil dialogue, with regard to representativeness, transparency, accountability, and track-record.
We propose that NGOs establish a set of guidelines of good practice in relation to their governance, transparency, accountability and representativeness. III. The Civil Dialogue and NGOs
‘It is time to realise that Europe is not just run by European institutions but by national, regional and local authorities too and by civil society', Romano Prodi, Speech to European Parliament, 15 February 2000
European NGOs welcome Romano Prodi's recognition of the value of civil society to Europe. However although it is unquestioned that we are an important part of the economy and have found ways of making our voices heard, we would argue that it would be more correct to say that we participate in the organisation of society, rather than being involved of the running of society. We believe that the development of good government necessitates the full participation of its citizens at all stages, and the establishment of a structured dialogue between organised civil society and the different levels of government. Such a structured civil dialogue should not detract from the importance of the political dialogue, nor from the necessity of taking action to strengthen political structures and institutions.
There is no contradiction between the objective of having a strong Parliament and Commission and the support for what the Commission has called "the right to be involved". The articulation of such a right must support the strengthening of the political process and be seen as a positive step towards enhancing the effectiveness of policy-making and the legitimacy of the European Union, as well as restoring the faith of European citizens in their leaders.
However, any such articulation must ensure that the "right to be involved" is formulated in an inclusive manner. The development of the structured civil dialogue must not result in the creation of a hierarchy within civil society which would have the effect of privileging some voices over others. What is important is to develop mechanisms which allow organised civil society to contribute at all stages of the policy-making and legislative process. This involvement should include many different forms of consultation (from electronic fora through to large-scale public meetings, for example) as well as more formal and structured forms of dialogue.
Clearly, in order for organised civil society to be able to make an effective contribution, it is necessary for a dialogue to be established at an early stage of policy-development, and for this to be continued right through the process, culminating in the eventual evaluation of the action. At the moment there are many good examples of the consultation of civil society by the European Institutions, particularly by the Commission and the Parliament and of late also by Council. However, such examples of civil dialogue are currently contingent upon the good will of individual actors within the process, whilst in other areas dialogue with civil society is limited, non-existent, or ex-post facto. Furthermore, whilst the establishment of ‘ad hoc fora' such as the Social Forum can provide interesting encounters between civil society and the Institutions, they are no substitute for a structured civil dialogue or for that matter either for the social dialogue or the political dialogue.
The structured civil dialogue between the Institutions and organised civil society needs a legal base in the Treaties. The Nice Treaty for the first time recognises the concept of organised civil society in the Article on the Economic and Social Committee. This is an important and most welcome first step which now needs to be complemented by a Treaty Article which will give a legal base to the structured civil dialogue and legitimate the various initiatives taken by the Commission to instigate a civil dialogue.
We call on the European Commission to propose a Treaty Article, or, at the least, a Council Regulation, in order to provide a legal base for the structured civil dialogue. Such a legal base, applying to all NGO sectors, should establish the accreditation of European NGOs and the creation of a horizontal unit within the Commission Services to manage the relationship with NGOs. The legal base should also prescribe an annual conference with NGOs on civil dialogue, and a provision encouraging Directorates-General to form framework agreements with NGOs in their sector, as well as encouraging the creation of a general Commission framework covering cross-sectoral dialogue with NGOs.
We call on all European Commission Services to publish, in consultation with the relevant European NGO groupings, their procedures for the consultation of organised civil society. Furthermore, the Commission already uses de facto lists of NGOs associated with the civil dialogue process, and it would promote transparency if such lists were made public.
We call for the organisation of an annual meeting of organised civil society with the Commission, to review the effectiveness of consultation with civil society and to discuss improvements to the process. We believe that the Economic and Social Committee (ESC) can play a role in developing a meaningful structured civil dialogue, particularly in light of its redefined role within the Treaty of Nice. However, various reforms are necessary before this can happen.
Group 3 (the ‘Various Interests' group within the ESC) must be restructured so that its members are drawn only from NGOs, nominated by Member States in consultation with civil society, and should no longer include organisations which are more correctly defined as employers' organisations.
The ESC's reports must encompass divergent views on the same issues. Failing this civil society organisations will always prefer to present a more coherent view directly to the Commission, Parliament or Council.
The ESC must become more proactive and innovative in its contribution to the future governance of the European Union, rather than intervening after the publication of Commission documents. Civil society can only play a meaningful role in European Governance if information and documents relating to European decision-making are made available in an open, accessible, and prompt manner to the general public.
We therefore call for general principles of open access to EU documents to be established and incorporated within the proposed Regulation regarding public access to European Parliament, Commission, and Council documents. Such principles should be based upon the Aarhus Convention provisions on access to environmental information. The process by which changes are made to the Treaties is flawed, as was evident in Nice. The Inter-Governmental Conference was characterised by closed meetings and a lack of consultation, followed by last-minute negotiations and shabby compromise which did not reflect the priorities for the future of the European Union. Furthermore, the current Treaty is unclear and inaccessible to most citizens.
We therefore call for the next Treaty revision to be prepared through a Convention, which would include European and National Parliamentarians, and representatives of national governments, who would meet in public on a regular basis, and who would undertake full consultation with civil society and a structured civil dialogue with European NGOs before presenting recommendations to the European Council for revisions to the Treaties.
More Information on NGOs and the EU
