An assessment of participatory and deliberative techniques and processes relevant to the European Green Deal

A range of European Union (EU) policies, programmes, and initiatives have been engaging citizens in their design and implementation, ranging from Citizens’ Dialogues to Horizon Europe Missions, from cohesion policy to green urban infrastructure. The European Commission (EC) has also held a few citizens assemblies. However, the formats currently used should be enhanced based on the lessons learnt from a wide array of successful deliberative processes rolled out at local and national levels across the EU and beyond. Moreover, European institutions do not yet apply citizens participation and deliberation in a systematic, evidence-based way. Hence, the REAL DEAL project aims to produce a comprehensive protocol of how the EU could and should design and deploy deliberative and participatory concepts, formats, and tools, to turn the objectives of the European Green Deal (EGD) into political actions and social practice. The main feature of this protocol is to ensure joint ownership over this crucial transformation by a wide range of stakeholders and citizens. The former includes representatives of the political, economic, scientific, and civil society sectors. The latter includes a cross-section of the European citizenship in all its diversity and cultures. Moreover, the end product, the protocol, is envisioned to provide guidance on how to give a voice to citizens and those individuals and groups who are often neglected and disenfranchised from the political process while being most affected by the necessary transformation. The protocol will also be sensitive to the diversity within Europe concerning social and political histories, cultures, institutional arrangements, and the way in which they give rise to different aspirations and challenges associated with the realisation of a green and just transformation