The Agglomeration and Community Development Office of the Lviv City Council, alongside representatives from Kyiv, Rivne, Zviahel, and Berdychiv, represented Ukraine at the European Conference on Deliberative Democracy in Strasbourg.
The event brought together 130 representatives of local, regional, and central authorities, as well as academics and non-governmental organizations from across Europe. The central theme of the discussions was “Resilient Europe through Deliberative Democracy: Cities and Regions in Action.”
“This form of democracy is gaining momentum in Europe and is currently in the testing phase,” says Nataliia Alieksieieva, Head of the Agglomeration and Community Development Office of the Lviv City Council. “Unlike representative democracy, which relies on an electoral system, deliberative democracy is based on large-scale public discussions of complex issues, conducted in the form of Citizens’ Assemblies. This is a new format for engaging residents in making socially significant decisions with the support of the Council of Europe.”
At this year’s European Conference, several countries shared their experiences in implementing Citizens’ Assemblies. Currently, there are only a few such examples across Europe. “Our European partners highlighted Ukraine, which, despite the war, has managed to organize and implement innovative democratic tools. Citizens’ Assemblies have already been held in Zviahel and Slavutych. Next year, this experience will be adopted by Kyiv, Rivne, and—for the first time—not just a single municipality, but the ‘Lviv Agglomeration’ Association,” Nataliia Alieksieieva noted. “For a country resisting Russian aggression and being in a state of war, this is a very high achievement, as noted by our European colleagues. It is an example of local government’s interest in working transparently and engaging the community.”
In late October, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed in Strasbourg regarding the implementation of a Citizens’ Assembly in the Lviv Agglomeration in 2026.
The next step is the Stakeholder Forum, to be held in Lviv on December 12. During this event, representatives of the Lviv community and the “Lviv Agglomeration” Association will identify the key challenges and issues related to the Assembly’s theme as part of the preparatory phase.
The preparation and implementation of the Citizens’ Assembly are conducted under the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine 2023–2026, “Resilience, Recovery, and Reconstruction,” within the project “Strengthening Multi-level Governance and Local Democracy in Support of Ukraine’s Recovery,” implemented by the Centre of Expertise for Multi-level Governance at the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe.
