• they represent categories of population, notably minorities and excluded populations;
• they offer their expertise, due to their grassroot orientation and their understanding of societies’ realities;
• and act as mediator between citizens and public authorities.

Since the establishment of the Treaty of Rome in 1957 the European Commission decided to identify representative interlocutors, which could implement the decided policies. In 2001 the European Commission's White paper on Governance has highlighted the importance "of a reinforced culture of consultation and dialogue".

The Treaty of Lisbon promotes participative democracy, by strenghtening the role of the European Parliament, by promoting citizens’ participation to the democratic life of the European Union and by creating of a right of citizen's initiative.

The article of the Lisbon Treaty on European democracy is rooted in 2 pillars, representative democracy and participative democracy with the intermediate of national Parliaments. Two forms of participative democracy are recognized in the Treaty: the direct participation citizens and the participation of the "organized civil society" which can gather associations, interest groups or lobbies. These groups can consequently participate to the European decisional process.

CEDAG promotes civil dialogue at every territorial level: European, national and local. It calls especially for the reinforcement of dialogue between civil society and the European Parliament, through more systematic consultations, particularly by means of intergroups and by the follow up of the Citizens' Agora initiative.

CEDAG as a relevant intermediate, reminds three fundamentals in participative democracy:

• through consultation processess, Non-Profit Organisations have to be considered as partners and not as interest groups;
• the outcomes of the consultations have to be clear, transparent and available in all European languages;
• clear procedures of consultation have to be set up.
  

National and European platform of civil society organisations have to be supported from a financial point of view. The program "Europe for Citizens" 2007-2013 is in this sense bringing a structural support in spite of its competitive procedure of selection.