FAQs

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.