EU democracy tool hanging in the balance

Less than three years after its launch, the EU's participative democracy tool has all but ground to a halt, amid criticism it is too complex and failing to result in change.

Hailed as a possible answer to the increasingly pertinent question of how to make people feel they have a political and cultural stake in the EU, the European Citizen’s Initiative is now considered almost obsolete.

"Too many initiatives have fallen by the wayside or, worse, come up against the legalistic and b...