NGOs and the COE

Today, Jutta Gutzkow, NGO liason officer of the Council of Europe, told us about how the Council of Europe interacts with NGOs. There is a big conference every year where many international NGOs meet to interact with the Council of Europe. According to miss Gutzkow, this is very important because if all the NGOs make a single voice, they are much more powerful in influencing actual policy than if they act on their own. Also, the Council of Europe can get a very clear view on what is happening in a civil society by interacting with NGOs. On top of that the Council of Europe tries to promote NGO activity in its member-countries to promote a civil society there. They see to it that NGOs use lobbying in a democratically responsible way through a special rule of conduct they formulated.

NGO and other non-governmental activity can be very important for a democracy because through them, politicians can get a much better view of what their electorate wants. IF NGOs are involved in the policy process, unpopular but necessary decisions can also be explained much better to the electorate through the NGOs. It is true though that some kinds of NGO bargaining can also undermine democracy. This is sometimes happening because usually NGOs represent only the interest of part of the society while democratic politics has to take into account the interest of the whole society. If a NGO gets too strong or uses methods that are not democratically responsible, it can force politicians to act in favor of their interest at the expense of the societal interest. Therefore I think it is very good to regulate the behavior of the NGOs so that a society can have the benefits of NGOs but not the costs.

Another part of the presentation was about how political decision-making works and what kind of participation belongs to different phases in the decision-making process. It was a very clear explanation of complex elements of political theory and very helpful in understanding the work of NGOs and the involvement of the Council of Europe in this.

All in all, I really liked this very clear presentation, made possible for a big part by the great work of our translators. If all presentations will go like this, it will be a very useful and interesting week. I am looking forward to tomorrow...