One of the biggest flaws with the European Union, that even the most die-hard fan of the organisation would probably admit, is that there is a significant disconnect between it and the citizens living under its purview. It was arguably one of the big reasons that five years ago this week, the British public voted to leave in the referendum. It’s not an unknown problem within the organisation and despite attempts to improve engagement that range from the earnest to the frankly baffling, too often their projects have fallen flat.

Currently the EU is undertaking another major attempt to bring its citizens into the decision-making process. The ‘Conference on the Future of Europe’ has been in development for three years, and over the course of 11 months is promising to be one of the most significant engagement projects undertaken since the foundation of the Union. The Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen has described it as an invitation for citizens to “play a leading and active part in building the future of our union”.

So what does the programme consist of? There is a ‘multilingual digital platform’ for citizens to share their ideas which will, according to the Conference’s website, “be collected, analysed, monitored and published”. The project intends to hold events across the continent organised by national, regional and local authorities, as well as non-state actors. The centrepiece of the conference is the series of four citizens’ panels (actually, more akin to citizens’ juries going by their description), each intended to bring together 200 randomly selected citizens of the EU to represent the diverse range of the citizenry. The recommendations from the citizens’ panels will be grouped by themes and debated by a ‘conference plenary’ comprised of representatives of the three governing bodies of the EU (the Commission, Parliament and Council), national parliaments and citizens.

It all sounds very impressive. But some of the cracks might already be starting to show. Last Saturday, the conference held its first plenary session in Strasbourg, with only a quarter of the number of expected citizen participants taking part. Despite the fact that the Citizens’ panels will start meeting in September, selection of participants is still not complete. The project may also already be falling victim to the often-fractious internal politics of the EU. The Co-Chair, the EU politician Guy Verhofstadt (familiar to many of us as one of the major European opponents of Brexit) has already had his role downgraded, and national Government have already started discussing how they might push their own agendas through the event.

The vagaries of EU politics however may not be the most fatal blow. That may come from a more fundamental problem. Although there has clearly been an effort to make the various events and programmes accessible, the structure of the project is still very top-heavy (not helped by the apparent difficulties that are coming up in getting citizen participants). The foundational document, the Joint Declaration on the Conference on the Future of the Europe is wordy and doesn’t outline clear goals. This lack of clarity, whilst in some circumstances could be a benefit allowing genuinely new ideas to circulate, may also fall foul of the intricate structures set up supposedly to ensure that the results of the conference are acted upon.

It is, from our perspective a fascinating project. We wrote a few weeks back about the difficulties of significant international consultation, and here we have an example of such a project which, in theory at least, shouldn’t be as difficult as a global consultation, the participants being linked by common ideas and cultures. But whilst we laud ambition in consultation, we can’t help but wonder whether the whole project might be slightly over ambitious. It bears a lot of the hallmarks of the EU, being a heavily bureaucratic, potentially overengineered solution that is unlikely to prove inspirational to anyone. The ideas behind it might be good but that, only a few weeks in, there are already doubts starting to emerge might suggest that a rethink is necessary.

The EU certainly has a need to better connect with its citizens, to explain itself better and ultimately to assure people that it is a project for them. But this may well not be the way to do it. Naturally, we believe firmly that any rethink should involve a significant amount of public consultation and engagement, but the best public engagement is easy to understand, well structured and asks the key questions. It provides the information that decision-makers need to make their decisions, and encourages everyone to have a say. There is a risk that with this iteration of public engagement the result is either discarded as a confused mess, or that it could even end up being actively harmful to the institution.

Ultimately, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. The early signs might not be inspiring, but if the Conference can prove itself to be a valuable tool in guiding the EU forward it could prove a model for this sort of international engagement in the future. We’ll be watching with some degree of interest. Oh, and if anyone from the EU wants help with their citizen engagement, they know who to call.