The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Strengthening Civic Participation in the European Union: Ensuring Administrative Transparency and Accessibility in Algorithmic E-Consultation

In an era of digital governance, the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) offers new possibilities to meaningfully engage citizens in consultative policymaking processes and prompts fundamental questions about the future of democratic legitimacy in regulatory decision-making within the European Union (EU). The prospect of implementing AI-enabled consultation platforms (AECPs), digital participation platforms run by local administrative bodies that leverage AI to enhance civic participation in policymaking, is thereby worth examining. Drawing on EU instruments such as the AI Act (AIA), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and Web Accessibility Directive (WAD), and case studies from EU Member States such as Spain and the Netherlands, this paper contends that while AECPs have the potential of enhancing democratic legitimacy by improving accessibility, and scaling participation in administrative consultation, they also carry risks of opacity, bias, arbitrariness, and exclusion. The analysis demonstrates that insofar as algorithm-based participatory tools are carefully integrated in compliance with EU-developed good administration and AI transparency standards, which provide safeguards for accessibility, monitoring, accountability, redress, non-discrimination, and data protection, they can help bridge the democratic gap between citizens and regulators and thus enhance the democratic legitimacy of the administrative process.