For many months, two connected debates – and two acronyms – have been bringing uncertainty to social NGOs in the wake of the EU 2020 strategy. It concerns how NGOs will be able to engage with the European institutions and influence the development and implementation of policies in the future.

On the one hand is the social OMC, the ‘open method of coordination’ which over the last 10 years has become a prominent way for national and European public authorities to engage with each other and, to some extent, with interested non-governmental actors like civil society, businesses and trade unions. On the other hand, is the European Platform Against Poverty which people refer to as EPAP which is a new initiative created to respond to the EU target of reducing the number of people in poverty by 20%.

A new tool for citizen participation in EU agenda setting was created when the Lisbon Treaty came into force in December 2009. Article 11.4 created the ‘European Citizens Initiative’ (ECI), which allows 1 million citizens of the Union to request that the Commission makes a legislative proposal to the other institutions.