Civil Society and the European Semester

This OSE Research Paper examines how civil society organisations (CSOs) engage with the European Semester, the European Union’s annual process for coordinating economic and social policies across Member States, and why this engagement remains structurally weak. Drawing on five years of mixed-method research, it identifies four interlocking obstacles: the resilience of a neoliberal economic paradigm, fragmented and reactive CSO strategies, structural power and knowledge imbalances vis-à-vis key economic actors, and growing “Semester fatigue” caused by opaque and time‑pressured consultation practices. The paper argues that these are not merely procedural flaws but deep governance mismatches, and advances concrete recommendations for CSOs and European policy‑makers to build more democratic, socially balanced EU economic governance.