Innovació democràtica

Barcelona convinced the jury with various projects, including the Decidim citizen participation platform, the participatory process concerning the city‘s superblocks, participatory budgets and deliberative citizen assemblies, such as the Youth Forum and the Citizens‘ Assembly for the Climate.

For a year, starting in autumn 2023, Barcelona will be the setting for strengthening democracy via innovation and local, European and international participation. The city will present and jointly organise, with the European Capital of Democracy NPO, an annual programme featuring projects and initiatives of great relevance, such as ‘The Art of Democracy’, an exhibition on culture and democracy; the Truth, Lies & Democracy meeting, three weeks of European challenges via video games to tackle fake news, and the Act Now Mayor’s Conference, a European meeting of mayors concerning climate policies.

Furthermore, the City of Barcelona will organise a series of participation activities, events and processes to work alongside the city‘s network on co-creation processes, to promote educational spaces on democracy and provide European projection for the city‘s participatory processes, such as participatory climate budgets and deliberation at a metropolitan level.

The main promoter of the Capital Status is The Innovation in Politics Institute, an organisation whose main goal is to promote democratic innovation and reinforcement in Europe and the international arena. Furthermore, the initiative has the support of the Council of Europe, the European Commission and European stakeholders who seek to explore democracy, such as the Democratic Society, RSA, the German Marshall Foundation and twenty other relevant organisations.

The European Capital of Democracy programme has the support of Barcelona‘s Strategic Metropolitan Plan, with which it will work to consolidate the project‘s local technical office.