Conclusions and Recommendations for citizen engagement in EU Cohesion Policy  

• Refer to this area of EU policy competence as regional policy and not cohesion policy: EU policymakers should revert back to consistently referring to this area of EU policy as ‘regional policy’ rather than ‘cohesion policy’. ‘Regional policy’ is something that is easily understandable to citizens, as regions and municipalities constitute places where citizens live, work, and socialize. In contrast, the term ‘cohesion policy’ takes this area of policy further away from citizens, as ‘cohesion’ is a vague policy and academic construct that is not easily comprehensible or relatable to citizens. On a semantic and communicative level, using the term ‘cohesion policy’ over ‘regional policy’ is politically naïve and potentially problematic in the current climate where support for Eurosceptic parties is growing. The notion of cohesion has strong connotations with federalist ideas, therefore, EU policymakers should be aware of the semantic dangers of referring to ‘cohesion policy’ in providing fuel for populist parties advocating the threat of a European superstate. EU policymakers need to think like citizens in the language they apply when communicating this policy area. Eurosceptic political parties are highly skilled at connecting with citizens using uncomplicated language and simplistic messages. EU policymakers need to follow suit and be more politically strategic and savvy in communicating EU policy competence using a simple language that is easily accessible to citizens. ‘Regional policy’ is a more easily understandable term which policymakers can use to connect with citizens and communicate the role of this policy sphere in citizens daily lives.    

• Emphasize to citizens that the central objective of cohesion policy is to reduce disparities and promote socio-economic and environmental growth and development within their regions: As one speaker at the Cohesion Alliance high level event noted, if policymakers cannot clearly define the aims and objectives of cohesion policy, then how can we explain it effectively to citizens (Cohesion Alliance 2023). The term ‘cohesion policy’ does not accurately reflect or communicate to citizens the primary aims and objectives of this policy sphere. Promoting cohesion between regions is one goal of cohesion policy, but the primary focus of cohesion policy and funding is to reduce disparities and enhance growth within regions. Referring to this policy sphere as ‘regional policy’ would make it easier for EU and regional policymakers to communicate this primary goal to citizens. Policymakers should emphasize this primary objective in communication with citizens, as reducing disparities and promoting growth within regions is a policy that citizens will most likely understand, support, and engage directly with in policymaking processes. This highlights the importance of policymakers using understandable language in communicating a clear message to citizens regarding the main aims of cohesion policy.   

• Use digital tools to enhance cohesion policy communication to citizens throughout the whole programme cycle, especially the programming phase: The communication of cohesion policy to citizens has largely evolved around the use of symbolic imagery (i.e. EU plaques on buildings) and the passive online dissemination of information, including the results from cohesion policy projects and policy impact assessment reports. Communication to citizens is somewhat backloaded to the programme implementation and evaluation stages, thereby confirming the position of citizens as the recipients of cohesion policy. Regional and local authorities should maximize digital and social media tools, while also working in collaboration with local media, to communicate cohesion policy to citizens at all stages of the policy programme cycle (Moodie et al 2022). Each cohesion policy programme should develop a citizen communication strategy with a stronger emphasis on promoting citizen awareness and knowledge of cohesion policy at the programming phase (European Commission 2020). Effective early-stage communication of local cohesion policy citizen engagement events, using social media, is vital to increase citizen participation levels. This communication should emphasize the opportunity for citizens to participate in discussions that will inform and influence the direction of EU cohesion policy and funding in their own regions.   

• Lobby member state national governments to devolve EU cohesion policymaking responsibilities by promoting the benefits of sub-national level empowerment and citizen involvement: The Cohesion Alliance high-level event highlighted that national governments remain the greatest obstacle to implementing place-based cohesion policymaking (Cohesion Alliance 2023). EU and regional level policymakers must work together to put pressure on national governments by highlighting the potential benefits to national governments of empowering sub-national level actors and citizens. Growing distrust in political elites is a phenomenon that negatively impacts both the EU and national levels. National governments should recognize the potential benefits of working with citizens in cohesion policymaking for helping to rebuild citizen trust and social capital in national level policymakers, especially in so-called geographies of discontent. The direct involvement of citizens in cohesion policymaking can also help national governments improve the focus of national level regional policies by raising their awareness and understanding of citizen needs within specific regions. A greater willingness of national governments to devolve decision-making responsibility to the sub-national level is paramount for facilitating citizen engagement efforts. 

• EU institutions should initiate political level discussions with member state national governments to make citizen engagement a mandatory element of EU cohesion policymaking processes: Recent informal discussions on enhancing citizen engagement in cohesion policy have involved EU institutions and regional and local authorities predisposed to the idea of empowering sub-national level actors and citizens. This debate needs to be conducted formally with EU member state national governments if citizen engagement is to become a mandatory element of cohesion policymaking. This discussion should focus on enshrining citizen participation within key EU cohesion policy legislative documents, including the Common Provisions Regulation (CPR) and European Code of Conduct on Partnership (ECCP).   

• Emphasize territorial governance and place-based policymaking over multi-level governance in core EU cohesion policy documents: In core EU cohesion policy documents, including the CPR, multi-level governance (MLG) remains the dominant EU cohesion policymaking paradigm. The current top-down nature of MLG processes in this policy field provides a dominant role for national governments and EU institutions, which weakens the position of sub-national level actors and reduces the potential for citizen engagement.  The lack of a firm commitment and references to bottom-up policymaking in key cohesion policy documents reaffirms MLG as the dominant paradigm, which serves to perpetuate existing top-down cohesion policy structures. A stronger focus on territorial governance and place-based policymaking approaches is needed in core EU cohesion policy documents (Moodie et al 2021b). This would highlight a shift of policymaking power and responsibility to sub-national level actors and citizens, with EU and national level actors playing a supporting role in these processes.      

• The concept of ‘active subsidiarity’ should be enshrined in EU Treaty as the basis for EU cohesion policymaking: Effective citizen engagement in EU cohesion policy requires a stronger role for sub-national level institutions as key facilitators of citizen involvement at regional and local levels. To empower sub-national level actors, ‘active subsidiarity’ needs to become the foundational basis for cohesion policymaking within both EU Treaties and key EU cohesion policy documents. The concept of active subsidiarity has been advocated by the European Commission to give a stronger voice to regional and local authorities. While there is no strict definition of active subsidiarity, the concept goes one step further than the original principle of subsidiarity by emphasizing the proactive participation of regional and local authorities in creating and executing EU policies (Aleksieva & Orejarena 2024; Moodie et al 2021b). Policymakers and scholars should explore the potential for extending the concept of active subsidiarity to include citizens, so the focus is on engaging citizens directly in policymaking rather than just moving the EU closer to citizens. The implementation of active subsidiarity is a fundamental legal and structural change required to lay the foundations for proactively engaging citizens in place-based EU cohesion policymaking. 

• Clearly define the important role of territory in EU cohesion policy: Policymakers should embrace the concept of territory as an essential foundation for engaging citizens in EU cohesion policymaking (Moodie et al 2021b). Notions of territory, based on nested regional and local administrative boundaries, are not only important for democratic legitimacy, but provide an important construct around which to actively involve citizen in cohesion policy discussions. Policymakers and academics in the field of EU cohesion policy have become too focused on notions of soft space planning, integrated territorial development, and functional areas. These ideas take cohesion policymaking further away from citizen by underestimating the importance of territorial units as essential social constructs around which local stakeholders and citizens base their identities and understand their own realities. The current challenges facing Europe might transcend administrative boundaries, but it does not mean that citizens perceive these issues independently of their own regional and local contexts, networks, and experiences. Regional identities are also growing stronger during a period in which trust in the EU and national governments is at an all-time low. Within this context, a clearly defined notion of territory is needed within EU cohesion policy to enhance democracy and links with citizens.

• Consider citizens as contributors to EU cohesion policy and not just recipients: The proactive engagement of citizens requires policymakers to overhaul antiquated rhetoric that reduces the role of citizens to recipients of cohesion policies (Moodie et al 2022). This is most evidently reflected in the Commission’s reliance on ex-post impact assessments as the primary tool for connecting, communicating, and justifying cohesion policy to citizens. Classifying citizens solely as recipients has largely restricted citizen participation in this policy field to a small number of “usual suspect” stakeholders/beneficiaries that are regularly involved in cohesion policy programme development and implementation. Citizen’s need to be considered as active contributors to EU cohesion policymaking as they have an important stake in determining the overall direction of EU cohesion policies and funding in their own regions. Referring to citizens as contributors recognizes that their regional and local knowledge can play a vital role in improving the quality and local embeddedness of EU cohesion policies. Thinking of citizens as contributors is also a pivotal first step for initiating a serious debate on how to better integrate citizens into EU cohesion policymaking processes.           

• Ensure that economic growth is not overprioritized as a key objective of cohesion policy: Cohesion Policy has increasingly focused on larger urban areas and cities and their capabilities to stimulate economic growth and innovation. While economic growth is an important objective of cohesion policy, other social and environmental objectives should not be neglected (ESPON 2020). A balanced policy objective portfolio is needed to ensure that cohesion policy addresses all regional and local challenges and opportunities important to citizens. This could help increase citizen participation beyond the cohesion policy “usual suspects”, including industries, businesses, and universities interested in regional innovation and economic growth potential.   

• Build a citizen engagement logic into key EU cohesion policy documents: There are currently no references to direct citizen involvement within the CPR or ECCP. Citizen involvement needs to become embedded within these core cohesion policy documents if citizen engagement is going to become a regular institutionalized practice in EU cohesion policymaking. Within these core documents, EU policymakers need to make it clear at what stages of the process citizens should be involved and how this can be done in practice. The EU can supplement these core documents with practical citizen engagement handbooks designed to support regional and local authorities to facilitate citizen engagement activities.   

• Engage citizens at all stages of cohesion policymaking but emphasize early-stage involvement in the programming phase: Citizens have the potential to play an active role at all stages of the cohesion policymaking process. In the policy programming phase, they can help determine the overall direction of policy and funding focus in their regions. They can also support the selection of projects at the policy implementation phase and assess the quality of projects and the overall programme at the policy evaluation phase (OECD 2022). Policymakers need to move beyond one way information sharing and towards proactive citizen deliberation and collaboration in EU cohesion policymaking. Interactive citizen involvement at the policy programming phase is particularly essential for enhancing input legitimacy by increasing citizen ownership and support for cohesion policy through their active participation in policy cocreation processes. Early-stage citizen involvement can increase citizen interest, knowledge, and awareness of the policy implementation process (throughput legitimacy), while also strengthening how citizens perceive and understand cohesion policy results (output legitimacy). Citizen engagement at the programming phase is an important supplement to the output legitimacy bestowed by impact assessments, putting less pressure on programme storytelling and ex-post evaluations as the main source of building citizen awareness and support for cohesion policy (Moodie et al 2022).

• Target citizen engagement in the preparation of overarching cohesion policy programme documents: Citizen engagement is costly and time consuming, so it is not possible to conduct citizen engagement initiatives for all cohesion policy instruments. Regional and local authorities would need to be selective and prioritize citizen engagement around the preparation of partnership agreements and operational programme documents that outline regional and local priority policies and funding objectives for the whole cohesion policy programming period. EU cohesion policy MAs are currently suffering from strategy development fatigue.  EU policymakers should, therefore, explore the possibility of consolidating citizen engagement around the preparation of one key overarching cohesion policy programme document. The citizen-led inputs outlined in this overarching document could then be used to inform the development of smart specialization strategies, CLLD, LEADER, ITI and cross-border programmes (Moodie et al 2022). This would enable MAs to save resources and capacity by limiting the number of citizen engagement processes required.

• Map existing citizen engagement tools against current cohesion policymaking instruments: Policymakers do not need to develop new citizen engagement tools to enhance citizen involvement in cohesion policy as a plethora of democratic citizen innovation tools already exist. EU policymakers should map how these existing citizen engagement tools can be more actively applied within current cohesion policymaking instruments (Moodie et al 2022). For example, citizens could be engaged in the development of partnership agreements, operational programmes, and LEADER, CLLD, ITI, and Interreg programmes. Different programmes might require different citizen engagement tools, so a provisional mapping of these tools could be beneficial for regional and local authorities responsible for developing and implementing cohesion policy programmes.  

• Develop permanent regional level forums for citizen engagement: Citizen engagement throughout the cohesion policy cycle could be fostered through the development of permanent regional level citizen engagement forums (Moodie et al 2024). Local Action Groups (LAGs) are an important stakeholder platform within EU cohesion policy LEADER and CLLD programmes. LAGs are currently dominated by the “usual suspect” cohesion policy stakeholders/beneficiaries but have the potential to be opened to wider citizen participation. Existing LAGs could provide a potential framework for regular citizen engagement. The ongoing Horizon Europe DUST project is experimenting with Regional Future Literacy Labs as a tool for promoting citizen engagement in sustainability transition policymaking (Balz et al 2023). Similarly, the Horizon 2020 SHERPA and Horizon Europe Granular projects developed and implemented multi-actor platforms (MAPs) and Living Lab (LL) models for engaging traditional EU cohesion policy stakeholders in a science-society-policy dialogue (Slätmo 2020; Martino et al 2024). Further research is needed on whether these models can be extended to include citizens in cohesion policy discussions. Models such as MAPs and Living Labs have the potential to become permanent forums for engaging citizens in cohesion policymaking processes. More significantly, engaging citizens in a science-society-policy deliberation can enhance citizen understanding of cohesion policy and potentially build trust and social capital between citizens, policymakers, and experts.  

• Provide regional and local authorities with targeted investment for developing and implementing citizen engagement activities: Citizen engagement can be time consuming and resource intensive so targeted funding for regional and local authorities is required to 1) raise their knowledge and understanding of citizen engagement tools; 2) train policymakers to implement citizen engagement tools effectively; 3) cover the costs of citizen engagement events (OECD 2022). Funding might also be required for external actors to facilitate citizen engagement activities, including researchers and consultants with a knowledge and experience citizen engagement tools. EU cohesion policy funds could be used to develop capacity and experiment with citizen engagement; for example, dedicated technical assistance and capacity building funding could be included in operational programmes to support citizen engagement efforts.

• Develop a citizen engagement roadmap for EU cohesion policy programmes: Policymakers would benefit from the development a citizen engagement roadmap which provides a feasible timeline for citizen engagement activities in the preparation of cohesion policies post-2027. The central goal of policymakers should be to proactively engage citizens in the preparation of key cohesion policy documents for the post-2027 programming period. A roadmap outlining when to begin citizen engagement efforts would help regional and local policymakers to plan effectively for policy cocreation processes. A roadmap should recognise different capacities, institutional traditions, and experiences in citizen engagement across EU countries and the regions within them. Such a roadmap should be tailored to meet place-specificities and outline measures to develop capacity for participation where these are lacking on both on the sides of public authorities and citizens.

• Programme Managing Authorities should work closely with local universities with a knowledge and experience of citizen engagement tools to help facilitate learning and practical events: MAs require knowledge, skills, and training to deliver effective citizen engagement activities. Regional and local universities can play an important role in raising the knowledge and expertise of managing authorities on current citizen engagement tools, as well as playing an important role in facilitating citizen participation events (Moodie et al 2022). The EU could also provide a platform for academics specialising with citizen engagement to provide advice, share experiences, and highlight new knowledge on existing and newly emerging citizen engagement tools. 

• Share experiences and good practices of citizen engagements methods: Given the plethora of new digital and traditional citizen engagement tools available, policymakers could benefit from a comprehensive mapping of these different methods, including: 1) an analysis of the relative strengths and weaknesses of each approach; and 2) examples of how to implement effective citizen engagement activities in practice. Here, the results and best practices from recent research focused on citizen engagement within cohesion policy could be useful, such as, the Commission and OECD pilot project scheme supporting managing authorities to develop new knowledge and skills for engaging citizens (OECD 2022). The ongoing Horizon Europe DUST project is also applying digital tools to raise citizen awareness and involvement in sustainable transition policymaking processes. The results of the DUST project will provide important insights on the challenges and benefits of engaging citizens in relation to EU Territorial Just Transition Plan processes (Balz et al 2023; Georgieva & Ferry 2023; Georgieva & Ferry 2024). The REGIO Peer2Peer + scheme could provide an existing repository for citizen engagement knowledge and good practices. Such repositories have their value and utility, but they are also potentially problematic as they tend to be uncritical, which may hinder learning regarding how citizen engagement tools are transferrable in different contexts. It is, therefore, important that regional and local authorities approach good practice information with dose of caution and ensure that any information used is carefully considered in relation to local specificities.