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Project co-funded by European Union
Chair co-funded by the
Erasmus+ programme of EU (2021 call)

The Jean Monnet Citizens´ integration into EU democracy module  (101047164– CitEUdem)  has been funded by the European Union's Erasmus+ programme in its 2021 call for proposals.

The module aims to teach, research, create networks, publish, and create and organise dissemination activities that serve to raise awareness of the political rights of European public and how they can be exercised.

The increase in the democratic participation of citizens has been a constant throughout the evolution of the European Union, which has run parallel to its progressive increase in competences as states have ceded sovereignty to it in areas increasingly distant from those that justified the creation of the European Communities in the middle of the last century.

The gradual expansion of the EU cosmos has made the distance between the citizens, around whom the EU orbits, and the decision-making institutions more evident, accentuating the perceived democratic legitimacy deficit that the supranational organisation has been blamed for since its origins.

To remedy this, the European Union has turned to democratic participation, first through the mechanisms of representative democracy and the direct election of members of parliament by citizens, and then by articulating collaborative mechanisms embedded in the realm of so-called participatory democracy. The legitimacy provided by the mechanisms of representative democracy is limited, and for this reason it is necessary to complement this system with other options that involve recourse to participatory democracy.

Such participation confers a greater degree of democratic legitimacy to the decisions and normative acts on which these mechanisms are projected, since, as they are exposed to the participation of citizens, who theoretically have been able to contribute to their formulation, it is assumed that they have the support of those to whom they are addressed.

 

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