Open parliament indicators in regional assemblies of European Union states

Abstract

The application of open government principles to regional legislative assemblies inevitably leads to the term open parliament. In this new approach, parliamentary chambers must concentrate their efforts towards greater transparency and collaboration that will encourage citizen participation. Information and communication technologies play a fundamental role in achieving the fullness of these three aspects, which, considered as indicators, allow the degree of openness of a parliament to be evaluated. With this new approach, representative democracy and participatory democracy find the right moment to walk hand in hand, institutionalising the meeting points. For this reason, this study will evaluate the degree of openness of the regional legislative assemblies of the member states of the European Union through the indicators of participation, transparency and collaboration, in order to find out the degree of implementation of the principles of open parliament at the European regional level.