{"id":33648,"date":"2020-05-22T09:06:31","date_gmt":"2020-05-22T07:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/?p=33648"},"modified":"2020-05-22T09:07:24","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T07:07:24","slug":"participation-citizens-need-information","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/2020-05-22\/participation-citizens-need-information\/","title":{"rendered":"Participation: Citizens need Information! YOU4EU-Citizen Participation 2.0 project"},"content":{"rendered":"

Madrid, 22 May 2020<\/em> \u2013 Citizens across Europe need better access to information to participate in decision-making processes at European, national, and local level. This is one of the main findings by Access Info Europe and partners of the \u201cYOU4EU\u201d project, which has been completed following two years of research and campaigning on civic participation.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

An extensive study carried out by Access Info (Spain), Belgrade Open School (Serbia), GONG (Croatia), Institute Alternative (Montenegro) and PiNA (Slovenia) also found that policy-makers are failing to communicate adequately with citizens, even though the public is \u00a0keen to learn about their governments and institutions, and to engage in decision making.<\/p>\n

The project partners mapped how the public seek information, especially via social media, and collected 367 questions from 288 citizens. These were grouped into 50 key questions on topics such as good governance, use of EU funds, personal data protection, environmental protection, media freedom, fake news, the European Parliament elections and the EU accession process, and resulted in the report \u201c50 Questions from YOU to the EU\u201d<\/a>. \"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

See the conclusions and recommendations outcome of this report by clicking on the images below<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The organisations noted, however, how hard it is get answers from public authorities. They sent the questions previously collected to 647 decision-makers at EU, national and local level, but just 181 of them replied!<\/p>\n

\u201cThis project helped us understand why citizens feel distant from governments<\/em>,\u201d said Helen Darbishire, Executive Director of Access Info. \u201cIn order to change this and restore citizens\u2019 trust in the political system, public bodies need to improve proactive communication with citizens, and to commit to transparency both of decision making and the spending of funds<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The main recommendations contained in the final project publication \u201cYOU4EU Policy Recommendations\u201d<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0include:<\/p>\n