Campaign-triggered Mass Collaboration in the Eu's Online Consultations: The Isds-in-ttip Case

Abstract

For EU institutions, public consultations represent a key tool for transparent and accountable policymaking. By means of e-participation tools, both the European Parliament and the European Commission aim to encourage multiple stakeholders to provide input on legislative processes in ways that go beyond traditional consultations, which are sometimes aimed exclusively at a small group of stakeholders. Online questionnaires are frequently used to give individual citizens, civil society organisations and other interest groups the opportunity to express their opinions. Although it is widely accepted that e-participation can improve the democratic legitimacy of EU policymaking, online consultations entail a number of democratic challenges. With the Commission's recent online public consultation on Investor–State Dispute Settlement in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, the flaws of online participation have once again become a focus of political debates. As a result of new societal trends that favour ‘low-effort, feel-good’ political participation via the Internet, e-participation will remain a challenge for the EU as well as for political parties. This challenge will not be appropriately addressed by having a high degree of transparency about the consultative procedures alone. What is required is more effective multi-level communication of the proceedings of the consultation and of its results.