You may add an image (jpg, jpeg or png file) to your own contribution on the Platform. At present you are not able to attach images to a comment. It is also possible to add hyperlinks to contributions and comments, for example to a web source or pdf document, however, this external content will not be considered for reporting/analysis purposes.
Only the author of the contribution can make amendments during the first 30 minutes after publication. After this period, the contribution is locked, and further amendment is not possible. It is still possible, however, to withdraw the contribution.
While it is not possible to amend other citizens’ contributions, you are free to offer your views and suggestions on any proposals using the “Comment” function.
Comments and contributions will be automatically translated and made available in all 24 official EU languages shortly after publication. The exact time may vary depending on the number of requests submitted to the system.
The number of topics per year as well as the timeline of each will depend on the Commission’s decision. There is no minimum number per year and no fixed duration for which a topic will stay open for discussion on the Platform.
Voting is currently not possible, but this function may be activated for future debates. Nevertheless, citizens can “endorse” contributions.
The main objective of the Citizens’ Engagement Platform is to allow citizens to contribute to EU policymaking. In addition, the other platforms under the revamped “Have Your Say” portal allow citizens to participate in consultations on existing policies and to support or/and promote European Citizens’ Initiatives.
Topics are for now driven by the policy agenda of the Commission as the aim is to make the contributions meaningful for ongoing policymaking processes. The ECI is the other tool available to push something on the agenda.
Citizens will see the analysis of their contributions on the Platform itself. If linked to an in-person participatory process such as a European Citizens’ Panel, the contributions will also feed into the on-site deliberations. Feedback on the impact of the contributions will be available on the Platform and in the case of a Panel, in a Citizens’ Report adopted with the policy initiative by the College of Commissioners.
Categories will be created in due course (see above on analysis of contributions). However, at present contributions are displayed randomly upon every new access to the Platform such that no contribution is privileged or receives more views by virtue of its placement.
As with the Conference on the Future of Europe and previous European Citizens’ Panels, the Citizens’ Report will be available on the Platform.
Yes, it might be possible to have surveys and polls based on some questions only.
The Citizens’ Engagement Platform is not a completely new platform. It is based on the digital platform of the Conference on the Future of Europe, with a revamped visual identity to reflect that it is now a European Commission project. Some functionalities of the Platform were also improved based on the lessons learned from the online engagement during the Conference on the Future of Europe.
The Citizens’ Engagement Platform is the result of the success of the multilingual digital platform of the Conference on the Future of Europe, which in turn was based on the open-source participatory democracy platform Decidim.
Decidim was chosen following an in-depth analysis of relevant leading proprietary and open-source online citizen engagement platforms. The analysis assessed the suitability and technical capacities of approximately 20 different platforms, using a pre-defined set of criteria, which included deliberative potential, moderation tools, analysis and synthesis of participants contributions, multilingualism, user authentication mechanisms, scalability, interoperability, accessibility and GDPR compliance, data ownership, security, and licencing model.
The Citizens’ Engagement Platform is based on the open-source participatory democracy platform Decidim: https://decidim.org/ . Decidim is a highly customisable and configurable digital platform, in functionality and appearance, offering a wide range of different participatory modules, which can be further customised and combined to implement the desired engagement process.
The authentication of participants in the Citizens’ Engagement Platform is done using the EU Login authentication service from the European Commission. One of the advantages of using this service is that it serves as a single-user authentication point for a wide range of Commission information systems. If you already have an EU Login account from another Commission service, you can log in to the “Have Your Say” portal using that account, and enjoy full access to that online ecosystem, which includes the (i) Citizens’ Engagement Platform, (ii) European Citizens’ Initiative, and (iii) Public Consultations and Feedback. Simply a functioning e-mail address is required to register, making it very easy for citizens to participate.
Almost all national government in the EU have their own authentication system, making it very difficult to implement and rely on one single system. In addition, national authentication systems implemented in the EU do not allow for seamless cross-border access. The EU Login authentication service allows the implementation of one single system that can be used by any individual, independent of location or nationality.
The Platform is open to all EU citizens. By gathering the contributions and comments from such a wide audience, and by making the contribution and engagement process as accessible as possible, we aim to receive input far beyond lobbyists. The analysis performed on the contributions is also able to identify potential influence from lobbyists groups.
The Platform relies on the EU Login service from the European Commission to authenticate participants. Even if it is possible for a user to create multiple accounts in EU Login with different emails addresses, when participating in the Platform, the analysis performed on the contributions can identify similar or duplicate submissions, as well as potential lobby influence. A strong moderation policy is in place to counter malicious activity, spam ware and other technological attacks on the Platform.
The analysis of the contributions submitted to the Platform (e.g., proposals and comments) is done partially with automated text mining tools with a continuous “human” validation, i.e., there is also a manual analysis. The automated analysis is based on:
Categorisation: using keywords in text of the contribution to assign it to categories, prioritised in the debate
Clustering: finding groups of related contributions.
Identification of near duplicate contributions to help detect campaigns.
Where possible, argument mining and other approaches to identify significant inputs worth exploring further are included.
It is mainly a qualitative analysis, but it takes also into account the number of endorsements or comments, as one of the different dimensions analysed.
Information slides presented during the Webinar on the Citizens’ Engagement Platform and further information to spread the word will be uploaded to the Citizens’ Engagement Platform.
The Commission is searching for ways to reach out to citizens in Europe. Multiple campaigns are taking place alongside topics published on the Platform. We also encourage every citizen to spread the word and invite their families and friends to participate.
The Platform is open and accessible to all. Organisations can therefore simply submit contributions like any other citizen or, via the event functionality, report on discussions held in their events (as done during the Conference on the Future of Europe).
This data is publicly available to foster the participation of citizens in political and social life and increase the transparency of government with the goal of facilitating access to and reuse of public sector information. More information on the European Commission’s open data policies can be found here.