Towards a Consultative Union? Unpacking Parliamentary Stances on Citizen Participation in EU Policy‐Making

Abstract Recent developments within the European Union (EU) reveal a notable ‘citizen turn’ marked by initiatives aimed at enhancing citizen engagement with EU institutions through deliberative mechanisms. Whilst existing scholarship has extensively examined political elites' perceptions of these participatory tools at the national level, the policy‐makers' attitudes at the transnational level remain underexplored. This study addresses this gap by analysing the discursive stances of parliamentarians – both Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and national members of parliament (MPs) – towards increased citizen participation in EU policy‐making. Adapting the framework of three ideal‐typical discourses originally developed for national‐level deliberative mini‐publics, we propose a refined typology of consultative , sceptical and power‐sharing discourses with specific EU‐level subtypes. Our findings reveal a predominance of the consultative discourse across the political spectrum and parliamentary levels. We observe no significant discursive divergence between MEPs and MPs. This not only points to the increasingly transnational character of the EU political system but is also critical for the legitimacy and effectiveness of EU participatory instruments, which hinge on the support of both national and supranational parliamentary tiers, as evidenced by the Conference on the Future of Europe experience. Furthermore, our analysis underscores the EU‐specific context as a factor shaping parliamentary attitudes towards increased citizen participation in policy‐making.