Personal profile: Laura Polverari

Laura Polverari

Country:	Italy
City/town:	Padova

Courses

Laboratory on EU Democracy in Action

The laboratory consists in a series of three four hour sessions, comprising participatory workshops which will give participants an understanding and direct experience of three different key elements of the EU’s democratic process, namely:

democratic participation by the directly elected European Parliament
general citizens’ participation through the EU consultation processes
the European Citizens’ Initiative, and the recently added European Citizens’ Panels, as experimented during the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFE)

The laboratories aim to give a practical as well as a conceptual understanding and enable critical assessment of the different elements of EU democracy.

The laboratory has been designed for students enrolled in the MA in European and Global Studies (including Erasmus students) but is open also to other students enrolled in BA and MA programmes who might be intersted in the themes.

All three sessions are entirely FREE.

The laboratories will take place in:

Day 1 - Friday, May 19, 2023 from 9.30am - 1.30pm: Representative Democracy - Room B (Palazzo Dottori, via del Santo, 28)

general introduction and presentation
general framework of EU democracy (representative and participatory)
EP elections/ electoral law/ role of political parties
quick recap on role of EP in co-decision procedure
practical exercise: working with a recent piece of EU legislation (C02 emissions for passenger cars) to explore how it has been discussed/ shaped in the EP discussion
actors/interests/processes in the EP

Day 2 - Friday, May 26, 2023 from 9:30am - 1.30pm: Direct Democracy - Room B (Palazzo Dottori, via del Santo, 28)

discussion of democratic deficit
better regulation and proximity to citizens
open consultation processes (“have-your-say”)
debate on direct democracy (Convention 2002/03)
European Citizens Initiative - legislation and implementation so far
practical exercise: developing an ECI campaign: - selection of topic - framing it for the EU context - building alliances - communication

Day 3 - Friday, June 6, 2023 from 8:30am - 12:30pm: Laboratory Participatory Democracy - Room P (Palazzo Wollemborg, via del Santo, 26)

The Conference on the Future of Europe 2021-22
participatory experiences across Europe
CoFE lessons and follow-up
the first three ECPs (Foodwaste, Meta-Verse, Educational Mobility)
practical exercise: how to organise a citizens’ panel - framing EU participatory democracy
concluding discussion: The Future of EU Democracy

Literature

Blockmans, S. & Russack, S. (Eds.) (2019).Representative Democracy in the EU: Recovering Legitimacy. Brussels: CEPS, Rowman & Littlefield International. Retrieved April 06, 2020 from here

Christian Marxsen, Participatory Democracy in Europe – Article 11 TEU and the Legitimacy of the European Union, in: Federico Fabbrini / Ernst Hirsch Ballin / Han Somsen (eds), What Form of Government for the European Union and the Eurozone?, Hart Publishing, Oxford 2015, 151-169 (available here)

Mudde, C. (2019). The 2019 EU Elections: Moving the Center. Journal of Democracy 30(4), 20-34. DOI:10.1353/jod.2019.0066

Michael Shackleton (2017) Transforming representative democracy in the EU? The role of the European Parliament, Journal of European Integration, 39:2, 191-205, DOI:10.1080/07036337.2016.1277713

EU institutional sources:

Day 1:

EP legislative train

European Parliament legislative observatory

Day 2:

European Commission Consultations.

European Citizens Initiative

Day 3:

Conference on the Future of Europe.

European Citizens’ Panels

For additional literature enroll the course.

Category DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCES, LAW AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES (SPGI) / A.Y. 2022-2023 / Master Degrees / EP2444 - EUROPEAN AND GLOBAL STUDIES