On November 26th and 27th people from all over the world and from a variety of organizations met in Brussels with the purpose of unifying their efforts to develop, foster, strengthen and advance direct democracy and citizens’ participation on the local, national, regional, transnational and global level. 

We have decided to unify our efforts under the name of “Democracy International” and hereby declare that: 

With the fall of the iron curtain and the end of the conflict between East and West, democracy and human rights have spread throughout Europe and other regions of the planet. Yet, in many parts of the world people are still struggling for their basic democratic rights. At the same time, established democratic institutions suffer from a massive loss of credibility. Fewer and fewer people believe in the capacity of politicians and elected officials to tackle and solve the major problems – such as climate change, the world‘s financial system, social welfare and economic inequality. Their call for a widening and renewal of the traditional democratic system cannot be ignored.

With the foundation of the global movement „Democracy International“ we accept the challenge from the citizens to build and strengthen direct democracy and citizen participation on all levels, may it be local, sub-national, national, regional, transnational or global. We declare that we, the citizens, have the power, the right but also the duty to improve our own democracies. From this day on it is our turn to organize ourselves as democratic activists, to overcome the unjust powers and to enhance the participation of everybody in the decision making process.

The economic world and especially the financial markets have not operated within national borders for a very long time. There is already a globalization of vital decision-making that is decisively non-democratic. We demand a globalization of democracy and a democratization of the transnational decision making process. Without strengthening the democratic rights and procedures on the transnational level, the internationalization of politics can lead to an erosion of democracy on all levels. We therefore demand direct democratic participation and citizens‘ rights on all governmental levels.

We are confident that direct democracy is contagiousand unifying. Over all language, cultural and special interest barriers citizens can find common ground through democratic principles and institutions. We strongly believe that mutual help and assistance is vital to cultivate healthy democratic rights and institutions.

We are individual citizens, founders and members of democracy initiatives and organizations from many countries and continents. We hereby unify our efforts under the name „Democracy International“ to pursue, develop and reach these goals. Democracy International is a transnational movement where every person who is in agreement with these principles can become a member.