Conference on Participatory democracy at local level,

Yerevan, Armenia 19 June 2013

General Conclusions, Herwig Van Staa (Austria, EPP/CCE), President of the Congress

1. This one-day conference organised by the Armenian Chairmanship of the Council of Europe and the Council of Europe Congress of Local and Regional Authorities provided a unique opportunity for the participants to reflect on recent developments in direct and participatory democracy and the opportunities that they represent for renewing and refreshing the grassroots democratic processes in our countries.

2. We were able to review and discuss in-depth the ways that democracy is evolving at the local level, the challenges that this represents for representative democracy and the ways in which newer and older forms of democracy can cross-fertilise and interact.

3. We organised our work around three sessions or workshops. The first looked at direct participation. The last few years has seen a rapid growth in new forms of democracy, an increased use of referendums, e-petitions, and citizen- panels directly involved in drafting policies and legislation. We are seeing bold new experiments – in countries such as Iceland and Estonia. These experiments, which are gaining in popularity, are an important trend in our democratic life.  We have some good practices to report and some important lessons learnt.

4. Our second session looked in detail at combining direct and representative democracy.  Representative democracy is not dead. We believe it has a bright future. But it has to adapt, accommodate and move with the times. Elected politicians - acting in executives or assemblies – on behalf of local and regional authorities, have to engage with civic society as never before, have to experiment with new forms of citizen consultation and learn to make good use of new forms of direct democracy and last, but not least, have to embrace new media. Traditional forms of representative participation have to co-exist with, live with, interact with and learn from new and direct forms of participation.

5. Our third thematic session examined new forms of civic participation that are associated with the new media and often labelled as e-democracy.  While these are still emerging, there are clearly here to stay.  Internet and new media are profoundly democratizing our society at all levels.  They are also challenging our local and regional authorities. Some of our authorities are rising to the challenge while others, feeling threatened, seek to discredit and even censor the new media, which we believe is not the way forward.  E-democracy is changing the face and shape of politics, traditional political parties are increasing competing against special interest groups and the ‘flash’ mobilisation of citizens on single issues.

6. Democracy can and is being strengthened by these developments in communication responsiveness and interaction. At the same time, new standards are required, new safeguards and laws to prevent abuse. Proper Internet governance has to be built on the Council of Europe values of democracy, human rights and rule of law.  Proper safeguards are necessary to protect individual privacy and prevent manipulation.

7. The new media are rapidly changing the shape and face of democracy by raising expectations and increasing demands for reactivity, accountability, transparency in government.  Governments cannot dismiss these movements and ignore them at their peril.  Freedom of speech and expression are crucial to participatory processes. New forms of expression, such as social networks and instant messaging, are already a vital part of the way people communicate and have become an essential aspect of political behaviour.  They have to be accepted, used, engaged with, while we should not lose sight of the fact that the existing standards of limits to free speech still apply.

8. The fact that such forms of expression are finding a new importance and vitality, points to a lack of trust in traditional media, a perceived  lack of responsiveness, a sense that traditional media do not always reflect the whole range of feelings and political views of our citizens.

9. The new forms of participation and new media have also demonstrated their value in giving a new voice to the different minority groups that are present in our societies, not only the cultural and linguistic groups,  but also people with special physical needs.  Different forms of participation open the political process to a wider spectrum of our population and this can only be for the good.

10. New forms of democratic life require an enabling environment.  This requires a strong civic society, in which associations play a vital role in pursuing greater transparency, dignity and freedom of expression. Awareness-raising of human rights at local level is now a priority for the Congress.  We are convinced of the importance for local democracy of freedom of expression, a strong pluralist media, freedom of assembly and association at the local level.  We must encourage our associative life.  Associations must be embraced as natural partners of local government – they have a vital role in safeguarding and promoting our values – of assembling citizens around issues of common interest and fostering public debate.

11. We should not try to reinvent the wheel. We have some important tools for developing participatory democracy and we need to give life to our standards and reference texts. For example, we have the Additional Protocol to the European Charter of Local Self-Government on the right to participate in the affairs of a local authority. We commend Armenia for its recent ratification of this important treaty and urge other government to follow its example.

12. The political rights of foreigners are also important and essential for their integration into local life. We must reiterate the importance of the Council of Europe Convention on the Participation of Foreigners in Public Life at Local Level and voice our concern that this treaty has received only eight ratifications to date.

13. To continue to support and encourage the political participation of youth, we will continue our work to promote the Council of Europe’s Revised European Charter on the Participation of Young People in Local and Regional Life.

14. Our toolkit also includes the European Week of Local Democracy, which is a unique opportunity to raise awareness in our towns and cities of the issues that we have been discussing here in Yerevan.

15. To sum up, our discussions today suggest that the future for participative democracy is a bright one. We are witnesses to a strong and growing political motivation on the part of citizens from all walks of life.   Our task is to strive to ensure that the best conditions are available for free democratic debate at the local level, that our citizens are encouraged to contribute to the important political decisions and deliberations that confront us.

16. It is clear, however, that there is no room for complacency among our elected local and regional representatives.  These new developments are happening at the same time as a global lack of trust in our politicians, with more and more people attracted to political views which are far from democratic.  Our politicians must embrace these new forms of participation and ensure that they become an integral part of our political life, or face the prospect of becoming increasingly irrelevant.