Europe

Europe has played a major role in promoting these processes, especially in the last decade, by becoming the region with the largest number of cases currently identified, namely from 4577 to 4676, representing around 39% of all Participatory Budgeting cases identified worldwide. Domestically, Participatory Budgeting in Europe are distributed as follows: 46% in Eastern Europe, 46% in Southern Europe, 5% in Western Europe and only 2 to 3% in Northern Europe.

Special mention deserves to be made at European level to:

1. The existence of three national Participatory Budgeting, the first worldwide, created by the Portuguese Government in 2017, namely the Participatory Budgeting for Portugal, the Participatory Youth Budgeting for Portugal and the Participatory Budgeting for Schools;
2. ​​The establishment of a national Participatory Budgeting in Ukraine in September 2019. According to the publicly released guidelines, this first edition is close to the logic of a national regional development programme;
3. Poland, as the European country with the highest number of cases, namely from 1840 to 1860, a situation to which the creation of national legislation to encourage the development of these processes at municipal level contributed in a decisive way;
4. Spain, which after the structural crisis of Participatory Budgeting following the municipal elections of 2011, became the third country with the highest number of cases from 2016 to 2019, without any legal requirement to do so.

The dissemination of Participatory Budgeting in Europe, mainly triggered from the beginning of the new millennium, has been ensured by different types of institutions:

1. Approximately 62% of the identified processes are promoted by local governments, while approximately 34% are supported by other entities, and the leading role of educational institutions, in particular public schools, deserve to be highlighted at this level. This result is mainly due to the approximately 1500 Participatory School Budgeting existing in Portugal;
2. The dynamics of the European regional governments in promoting these processes are still modest, with only 9 experiences, 5 of which in Poland, 2 in Portugal, 1 in Slovakia and 1 in Ukraine;
3. There are 15 major European cities, with populations of more than 1 million inhabitants, which are currently developing Participatory Budgeting. The capital cities - national or regional - that have been involved with this dynamic in Europe are currently 39. Spain, with the PB in Madrid and in 23 other provincial capitals, has contributed much to this statistic.

Using the four international indexes annalysed in this Atlas, it is possible to ensure that Participatory Budgeting in Europe are distributed as follows:

1. The vast majority, from 83 to 84%, is located in countries with imperfect democracies; approximately 12 or 13% in full democracies; while 4% in hybrid regimes;
2. Most of the cases, from 90 to 91%, are domiciled in nations with the second lowest level of corruption, namely the same level in which the democracies classified as imperfect are located, which in fact serves to corroborate the data provided in the previous paragraph;
3. The overwhelming majority of European Participatory Budgeting, some 95 to 96%, are located in territories distinguished with the highest level of human development;
4. From 58 to 59% of PBs in Europe are in countries with the highest level of Happiness. The remaining 41 to 42% are confined to the nations ranked at the second level of this index.

Participatory Budgeting in Europe emerged mainly as instruments for deepening democracy, promoting participation and building trust between populations and institutions.