Co-Deciding Europe: Civic Tech for Good Governance and Active Citizenship (CODE Europe) was a groundbreaking e-participation collaborative method of crowdsourcing for EU legislation in Bulgaria, Greece, Portugal, Latvia and Estonia. Using advanced IT solutions and tailor-made digital tools and platforms the project aimed at developing a culture of digital democracy and empowered citizens and public authorities to use modern means of interaction in the decision-making process on the subject of air quality.

CODE Europe was carried out by a consortium of organisations from Hungary, Iceland, Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece, Portugal, Latvia, Estonia and Slovenia. The three year project was carried out in 2021 – 2023 with the support of the EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Regional Cooperation.

The Consortium members were:

• Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary (Lead Partner)
• European Citizen Action Service (ECAS), Belgium
• Citizens Foundation, Iceland
• European Environmental Bureau, Belgium
• e-Governance Academy Foundation, Estonia
• Foundation of Public Participation, Latvia
• Centre for Public Policy PROVIDUS, Latvia
• Institute for Electronic Participation, Slovenia
• “Science for You” NPC – SciFY, Greece
• OneSource Consultoria Informática Lda, Portugal
• Dimos Athinaion Epicheirisi Michanografisis (DAEM S.A.), Greece

 What was CODE Europe All about?

We tested crowdsourcing, a new deliberative-collaborative e-democracy model that has the potential to contribute to a more engaged and active citizenship and improved good governance  by: enhancing participation  to citizens beyond the typical stakeholders; ensuring knowledge sharing  for both citizens and decision makers on the content and the process; encouraging innovative ideas and ‘hidden’ expertise to participate in the debate; increasing legitimacy of policy-making.

What Did We Do?

The initiative contributed to finding shared solutions to common challenges  by achieving the following objectives:

• Developing a universally applicable methodology for assessment of e-participation tested through the crowdsourcing pilots in order to ensure a learning curve.
• Developing guidelines for ethical ‘social listening’ which benefited from the availability of big data while protecting individual privacy and safeguarding citizens against inappropriate access to and use of data.
• Contributing to strengthening of democratic culture and civic awareness in the targeted beneficiary countries and EU-wide by soliciting the wisdom of the crowd on the subject of air quality and gaining insights through social listening which will inform policy-making.
• Ensuring exchange of lessons learnt and know-how throughout the project partnership and beyond through a series of events, brainstorms and online courses.

In parallel, within the framework of the DigiDEM project, a similar and closely coordinated exercise was carried out in Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands and Montenegro.