The Open European Dialogue platform, selected as a Best Practice for Public Sector Innovation by the OECD
The Open European Dialogue is a platform that connects European policymakers across parties and nations. The programme, run by five European think tanks and foundations, including CIDOB, has been included as a case study in the OECD’s report on cross-border government innovation.
The OECD’s Observatory for Public Sector Innovation has selected the Open European Dialogue (OED) programme as a Best Practice for Public Sector Innovation for its contribution to cross-border dialogue between politicians from different levels of government, parties, and European countries.
The OED provides a politically neutral dialogue platform for more than 200 policymakers to engage in informal, peer-to-peer, cross-border collaboration. As such, it gives them the opportunity to “discuss many different topics, test their views, build personal relationships, and be confronted with a range of opinions,” according to the OECD’s Observatory for Public Sector Innovation, which has included this initiative as a case study in its report on “Achieving Cross-Border Government Innovation.”
This platform was co-created by CIDOB together with other four leading European think tanks and foundations in 2015: the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMFUS), the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), the Istituto Affari Internationali (IAI) and Stiftung Mercator. The project is also supported by the King Baudouin Foundation and the Robert Bosch Foundation, and it counts with APROPOS-Advancing Process in Politic as process partner.
The Open European Dialogue programme’s goal is to address the major problem posed by the lack of communication and dialogue among European politicians through the establishment of a permanent platform that will allow a network of policymakers to communicate directly, exchange views, propose solutions and reach cross-border agreements in good time. The programme aims to make the platform self-administered by its members in the near future.