The European Commission’s public consultations should be a cornerstone of participatory democracy in Europe. They are meant to give citizens, civil society, and organisations the chance to influence the laws that shape our lives. But in practice, the system is stacked against ordinary people.
A System That Discourages Citizens
On paper the EC’s official consultation tool looks open and democratic. In reality, it’s anything but. To submit feedback, every participant must first go through a long and inefficient registration process. Setting up an account, verifying emails, filling out CAPTCHAs, sometimes even using a digital ID – all before you can even see the questions.
And we all know that feeling: the system doesn’t validate you, the authorisation email never arrives (or takes hours), or for some reason it simply doesn’t work. The most determined citizens will persevere, clicking and refreshing until they finally break through and manage to create an account. But for most – even those who are genuinely motivated to act – time and patience run out. They give up.
The result? Consultations are left wide open to professional lobbyists and big industry, while citizens’ voices fall away.
For professional lobbyists, the inefficient and annoying consultation system is the bread and butter of their work. For citizens and campaigners, it’s a wall. We hear again and again from the movement that supporters want to take part, but many simply give up before they get through the login screen.
This broken system favours those with money and time to spare – big industries with a direct economic stake in the legislation, and the lobbyists paid to represent them.
Formally, the EC complies with its duty to consult. But in practice, it is a façade of participatory democracy, where citizens’ voices are filtered out.
A Workaround for a Flawed System
We believe the consultation system itself needs deep reform. But with major deregulation proposals and significant new legislation on the table right now, civil society cannot afford to wait.
That’s why we built a dedicated tool which removes most of the barriers. It’s already being used by a growing number of progressive NGOs and campaigns across the EU. Crucially, our tool levels the playing field somewhat – so it’s not just lobbyists organising around consultations, but citizens and civil society organisations too.
Here’s how it works:
- Citizens no longer need to register on the EC website. Instead, they submit their feedback using our simple and user friendly widgets embedded on participating organisations’ websites.
- We handle the technical side of publishing feedback into the EC system.
- Each organisation only has access to supporter data collected through their own widget – not their partners’ or campaign lead’s widgets (and vice versa).
- The widgets have a built in social media and e-mail share step.
- Organisations keep the connection with their supporters, with GDPR-compliant access to contact details so they can follow up and show the impact of their action.
- Our widgets geolocate the supporter and adapt automatically to their language.
- Based on a tech stack of our existing cutting edge solutions in online campaigning we help citizens draft meaningful feedback.
- Each organisation gets a multilingual form that can be embedded on their website in minutes.
- The tool works with both single and multi- question EC consultations.
- We offer integrations with your CRMs and other custom solutions.
Proven at Scale: Hands Off Nature
The best proof that this approach works is the recent Hands Off Nature campaign. Coordinated by WWF, EEB, ClientEarth and Birdlife Europe and joined by 80+ organisations. The campaign was organised in the middle of the summer – not uncharacteristically, the Commission launched the consultation when hardly anyone was in Brussels. Despite the timing and short notice, our tool made it possible to mobilise across Europe.
In just 10 days, nearly 200,000 citizen feedbacks were collected and submitted. The campaign was multilingual, pan-European, and showed the power of civil society when given the right tools.
By following the principle of total distribution, every organisation involved could collect the data of its own supporters while contributing to one shared goal. It was collaboration at scale – with both breadth and depth of impact.
Looking Ahead
We hope that one day, workarounds like ours won’t be necessary – that the European Commission will build a system truly designed for citizens, not just professionals. Until then, our tool gives civil society a way to tilt the balance back – not a perfectly level playing field, but a fairer one where citizens and NGOs have a real chance to be heard. We’d love to connect with initiatives, campaigns, organisations, and trade unions interested in mobilising their supporters to participate in consultation campaign. Get in touch with us at contact@fixthestatusquo.org if you’re interested!
Deregulation is real, and unless citizens’ voices are heard, decisions will be shaped only by industry. Let’s not let that happen.