This position paper sets out our views on the role civic participation in governance, arguing strongly in favour of greater involvement of CSOs and citizens in direct democracy, making use of 21st century technologies to enable more direct and deliberative democracy.

Our position paper underscores the need for government, business, and civil society to work together in order to overcome the greatest challenges facing Europe, and indeed humanity.

Our paper outlines our support of the Five Principles of Good Governance as the basis upon which civic participation can be successfully instigated to secure strong civic participation in governance.

Our paper underlines how ENNA considers Article 11 of the Treaty of Lisbon as both a starting point and a golden opportunity to ensure that more active/assisted citizenship and civic participation exists at the EU-level governance in particular, and also underscores the importance of CSOs owning the opportunity and defining clearly its own views on how Article 11 needs to be interpreted and applied to encourage more participation in governance.