FAQs
All about us, FAQs...
- Who is behind the European Citizens Bank?
- Why was the European Citizens Bank initiative created?
- What are the expected outcomes of this initiative?
- What can I do on the platform?
- Do I need any prior knowledge of finance and the economy to read the content?
- How is the content on the platform structured?
- Who chose and wrote the content?
- What are the interactive webinars and how do I register for them?
- What is the final online deliberation event?
- What will the final online deliberation event look like?
- How can I debate on the platform?
- How do I get selected for the final online deliberation event?
- Can I contribute to a national debate even if I am not a citizen of that country?
- What languages are available on the platform?
- What are conversations?
- What kind of data is being collected on the platform?
- Why am I seeing a different language?
- What is Decidim and Open Source Politics?
- How do I contact the platform administrators?
Why was the European Citizens Bank initiative created?
The European Central Bank (ECB) is one of the European Union’s most powerful institutions. Its policies and decisions have an impact on housing prices, inequality, jobs, and our ability to fight climate change. The current health and economic crises have only served to reinforce its power. Yet its decision makers are not democratically elected and we cannot hold the ECB directly accountable for its actions. Citizens struggle to understand its complex policies, which leaves limited scope for meaningful debate.
The European Citizens Bank was created so that ordinary people, and not just experts, can understand what the ECB does. By empowering people to tell the bank what matters to them, we can rebuild a European economy that serves its citizens.
While we are doing our best to attract participants from diverse social backgrounds, the European Citizens Bank initiative does not pretend to give a representative view of citizens in the five countries taking part, and even less so of citizens in the Eurozone - which consists of 19 countries in total. Real representativity for this project would require a sampling of citizens, which is not possible given the limited budget.
The European Citizens Bank initiative aims to demonstrate that citizen participation tools can improve dialogue and, thereby trust, in European institutions, and could be used more widely. We hope that this project will inspire EU institutions and central banks to undertake more advanced and large scale initiatives for democratic participation.