RELAY_EU democracy blog post.docx
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… RELAY thematic workshop: Giving EU democracy ‘a new push’ in times of crisis Backdrop and remit of the workshop On 30 September 2022, a workshop about giving ‘EU democracy a push in times of crisis’ took place at the Brussels Campus of Maastricht University. This event … This was the 5th of 6 thematic workshops. Prof. Dr. Christine Neuhold ( Maastricht University ) kicked off the workshop by putting it into political context: the European Commission announced already in 2019 that it wants to go ‘further than ever before to involve Europeans in EU decision-making’. This was further elaborated in Commission’s 2019-24 political priority ‘ A new push for European democracy ’. One way for citizens to have their say in EU affairs was the creation of a Conference on the … (EP) has adapted its role to times of crisis. Academics often argue that crises empower the executive branch because decisions have to be taken under time pressure, behind closed doors, and secluded from the public eye. This is somewhat more complex when talking about EU decision-making. In the EU it is not so much the executive branch (i.e. the European Commission) that has been empowered by the polycrisis. Instead, it is the European Council, which has no executive power at EU level, that has …