EUROPEAN E-PARTICIPATION: STATUS AND REQUIREMENTS TO OPTIMISE FUTURE BENEFITS

PEP-NET SUMMIT, Hamburg (DE), 23 September 2010Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen

OUTLINE

EU agenda Status of eParticipation in Europe

Challenge and the opportunity

How to optimise eParticipation

eParticipation the next 5 years

EU AGENDA APPROACH (1)

Governance White Paper (2001): Openness, participation, accountability, effectiveness, coherence

EU (from 2006): Focus on empowerment of citizens, better communication, listening

Lisbon Treaty (2009): Democratic equality, participative democracy, representative democracy

EU AGENDA (2)

Europe 2020 (2010-2020): – Support active participation in the digital society

(media, digital literacy, security and trust)– Promote social inclusion and combating poverty

Digital Agenda (2010-2015): – Enhance digital literacy, skills and inclusion

(digital era is about empowerment and emancipation)– ICT-enabled benefits for EU society

(use of ICT and PSI to address challenges)– eGovernment services enabling cost-effective and better

service for all, participatory, open and transparent government

STATUS OF ePARTICIPATION (1)

Countries with national or sub-national eParticipation policies and different levels of initiatives (2009)

a) eParticipation policies – number of years

b) eParticipation policies (%)1

c) Local or regional eParticipation initiatives (%)

d) National eParticipation initiatives (%)

e) Cross-border eParticipation initiatives (%)

f) eParticipation initiatives linked to EU institutions (%)

1 Note, that Denmark, Spain and Sweden have reported that they will shortly have national eParticipation policies, which will increase the percentage of EU15 countries to 100%.

STATUS OF ePARTICIPATION (2)

Type and level of eParticipation initiatives in Europe (2008)

STATUS OF ePARTICIPATION (3)

European eParticipation funding (2008)

CHALLENGE AND THE OPPORTUNITY (1)

Channels used for eParticipation (2007/2009)

CHALLENGE AND THE OPPORTUNITY (2)

Channels used for eParticipation (2009/2010)

23% of Norway’s 431 municipalities use social mediac. 1/3 have guidelines for employee use of social media

•17% of municipalities have an official Facebook group / profile while 1% use LinkedIn.•15% use Twitter and 13% have a kind of blog •Other social media used include YouTube (8%), Flickr (5%) and Slideshare (2%)

MEPs use digital tools, recognise the online presence of citizens, but the majority do not take advantage of Web 2.0 to actively engage voters

•75% have a website, but 62% have never heard of Twitter or have no plans to Tweet •24% blog extensively, but 26% of bloggers comment on other blogs once a week or more•Traditional channels seen as most important incl:

•Advertising: TV (57%), print (45%), online advertising (33%)•Outreach: Writing a column (81%), blogging/micro-blogging (51%)•Informing thinking: Personal contact with stakeholdergroups (48%), national media coverage (42%), blogs (32% / 17%)

HOW TO OPTIMISE ePARTICIPATION (1)

Increased democratic accountability (sine qua non)

At least 6 main elements which could improve eParticipation practice and impact

HOW TO OPTIMISE ePARTICIPATION (2)

Governments/institutions should listen and provide

frameworks for citizen participation from the bottom

(but not control it)ENABLE

Formalise and mainstream eParticipation as part of a coordinated ‘open engagement policy’

NECESSARY

Establish and support independent, neutral, trusted 3rd partiesGUARDIAN

Citizen centricityEMPOWER

Civil-servant centricityEMPOWER

Unleash Public Sector Information for easy re-use machine-readable format

KEY

ePARTICIPATION THE NEXT 5 YEARS

Basic issues remain likely to remain the same but… not just about politics and policy making, but governance

structures and arrangements, service design and delivery

broadening, widening, merging theme(eInclusion, personalisation, design-for-all, community development, social entrepreneurship, etc)

business models turning inside-out(sharing, cooperation, collective action, blurring of boundaries, roles and accountability)

will we move from eParticipation to eEngagement? (are definitions helpful?)

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen Jeremy MillardNational IT- and Telecom Agency Danish Technological Institutmmn@itst.dk jrm@teknologisk.dk +45 2391 2291 +45 7220 1417

European eParticipation Study consortium

http://www.european-eparticipation.eu or http://islab.uom.gr/eP/