Stakeholder participation is an important tenet for European Union (EU) policymaking and it can be approached from different disciplinary angles. The legal literature tends to refer to participation as a formal consultative opportunity in regulatory processes, resulting in rather homogeneous institutional arrangements for participation across policy fields and different sets of problems. Sustainability science, on the other hand, starts from the understanding of a problem in its complexity and peculiarities as a driving force determining both the rationale behind and the design of each participatory process. In this paper, we explore lessons regarding participation that could be derived from adopting an approach in which we combine insights from law and sustainability science. Along four principles, we explore potential leverage points for improving the sustainability of EU decision-making processes and their outcomes.

利益相关者参与是欧盟 (EU) 决策的重要原则，可以从不同的学科角度来处理。法律文献倾向于将参与称为监管过程中的正式协商机会，从而导致跨政策领域和不同问题集的参与相当同质的制度安排。另一方面，可持续性科学从对问题的复杂性和特殊性的理解开始，作为决定每个参与过程背后的基本原理和设计的驱动力。在本文中，我们探讨了有关参与的经验教训，这些经验教训可以通过采用我们结合法律和可持续性科学的见解的方法得出。遵循四项原则，