The Year Past, The Year to Come: Supporting The European Democracy Shield And Beyond

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in the blog articles belong solely to the author of the content, and do not necessarily reflect the European Commission's perspectives on the issue.

Submitted by Angela PEREIRA on

The Year Past, The Year to Come: Supporting The European Democracy Shield And Beyond

CC-DEMOS Team
We look back at the CC-DEMOS milestones for 2025 and take a look at the year to come, including support for EU Member States and the Festival 2026.

It was a big year for the Competence Centre. In case you missed these milestones:

Capping off 2025, the European Commission, together with The European External Action Service (EEAS), adopted the European Democracy Shield, that provides concrete measures to protect democracies, while also supporting and safeguarding civil society organisations that play an essential role in fostering democratic life. Among other things, the EDS aims to boost societal resilience and citizen engagement, particularly for young people and local levels, in democratic life, through participatory tools, as well as setting up a new civic tech hub.

The Competence Centre will be supporting this strategy in 2026 and beyond through a variety of ways, namely: 

  • Training for Public Administrations (EU)
  • Participatory Excellence Centres
  • Evaluation and Impact
  • Civic Tech Hub
  • Network of National Experts on Citizen Participation
  • Research

What’s coming up in 2026?

There are many exciting projects coming up for the Centre in 2026 to look out for, including the last session of the Young Citizens’ Assembly on Pollinators in March - the Assembly brings together 100 young citizens to develop policy recommendations on addressing the decline of pollinating insects, one of the key problems of the biodiversity crisis. The CC-DEMOS will also continue to support the implementation of the Citizens' Engagement Platform with the aim to extend citizens’ participation in EU policymaking - the European Commission has announced the new online debate on Preparedness.

The Community of Practice has set up an advisory group, as a new collaborative mechanism for the Community of Practice. The Advisory Group will broaden the CoP’s presence in the activities of the CC-DEMOS through reflections on current priorities, activities and new initiatives. In support of Member States, the Competence Centre will rollout standards for participatory excellence and support for developing centres for citizen engagement (e.g. MS public administrations). It will also be offering guidance support on impact and evaluation for citizen engagement, including a survey to take stock of, learn from, and promote, citizen engagement impacts across the EU. This comes as the Commission launches a network of national experts on citizen participation which will be run together by DG JUST, DG COMM and CC-DEMOS.

The Co-Creation and Deliberative Processes Training for EU Member States will continue in Spring with new dates in at beginner level (English with others languages to follow), and the biannual Citizen Engagement for Policymaking Training is also going ahead – with an extra sessions for EU Institution Staff in June. You can find information on key dates for the courses and registration in this and future newsletter editions.

Two major reports will be published soon: ‘Democracy as it happens: how public spaces enable democratic resilience and citizen participation’, and: ‘Citizen Engagement Impact: Making a Difference to Policy, Institutions and Society’. Also a book on public spaces is coming out this year.

Finally, we would like to announce that the Citizen Participation and Deliberative Democracy Festival will take place in the last quarter of 2026 in Brussels! Soon we will open a call for sessions, workshops and creative ideas.

So, stay tuned to our website and this newsletter for all the details. 

About the Author
Ângela Guimarães Pereira leads the Competence Centre on Participatory and Deliberative Democracy. Her research and interests focus on different ways of knowing about environment and society, speculative “futuring” and citizen engagement institutionalisation(s). Post-normal science has been inspiring her work on governance of and dialogues about policy, science and technology. She advises on, designs and carries out citizen participation activities in science and policymaking.