Democracy and the wider world

What people decide

People, through accountable democratic institutions, decide how much prosperity contributes to public budgets and the balance between Government institutions, Grants, and UBI, including practical help, services, education, and paid work.

Different communities can make different choices within applicable rights and common rules. The same democratic framework protects individual choice over work, study, enterprise, and participation.

Three principles for the democratic foundation

Your own thoughts are always free. You must be free to think about, discuss, and remember matters that can affect democratic decisions in a non-negligible way. Government must protect this democratic input, including criticism of those in power.

“Think, discuss and remember love” is the slogan. Love, drawing on næstekærlighed, is part of the wording. The democratic foundation has exactly three principles: think, discuss, and remember.

Fundamental Democracy is the wider proposed system: establish that foundation, understand existing power—including the power of people cooperating—and build democratic arrangements that can work in practice.

Understanding power informs jurisdictions, who participates, how voting works, and how agreements can be upheld. Those choices become a constitution and its democratic procedures. Each must preserve the three freedoms and let people contribute to democratic decisions in a non-negligible way. Explore Fundamental Democracy.

People need a fair way to contribute, challenge decisions, and improve the system. Participation does not mean winning every decision or having a personal veto.

Limits that preserve democratic influence

Democracy sets boundaries for activities outside this protected democratic core and for AI capabilities. Those rules must respect other applicable rights, be precise and independently reviewable, and preserve people's ability to understand and change democratic decisions. People must always be free to discuss and challenge the boundaries themselves.

Your own thoughts remain free on every subject. The protected democratic core covers inquiry, discussion, and memory that can affect democratic decisions. Democracy sets rules for other outward activities, stored information, and AI capabilities, while respecting other applicable rights. See which boundaries democracy can decide.

The proposal protects criticism, independent research, historical evidence, peaceful commemoration, and discussion of political change. Democratic relevance includes possible future and cumulative effects. People need no advance permission to raise an issue, and disputed relevance needs independent review. A particular AI operation can have limits while the democratic question and the ability to examine it stay protected. Read the proposed protections.

Restrictions need precise rules published in advance, evidence, necessity, proportionality, and independent remedies. The Tiananmen example shows why evidence of state violence must remain available for public scrutiny. Officials cannot erase it merely because it affects how people judge those in power.

A process that can improve

Think, discuss, remember, improve—and repeat. People use the three freedoms to develop alternatives, make shared decisions, examine the results, and improve both policies and the system of government. The ability to revise decision rules and hold power accountable is part of the purpose.

The principles can guide the improvement of an existing democracy and the development of democratic control where it is missing. Effective protection, access to evidence, and enforceable ways for participation to affect decisions make that progress possible. Explore how the pillars support continuing improvement.

AI can help people understand options and express their preferences. People should be able to inspect, correct, or decline its assistance. Decisions about binding law remain with the authorised democratic process.

Politics is itself a human activity: discussing priorities, representing others, negotiating differences, and holding power accountable. POE programmes can fund useful work supporting participation, such as public discussion and community organising. People’s political rights remain independent of employment, qualifications, or a comparison with AI. Explore political work in the POE.

A digital democracy people can see working

Protect the freedoms. Begin with advice. Expand authority step by step. People support the foundation, existing authorities protect its three freedoms in practice, and an online advisory or “shadow” democracy develops proposals. Institutions can then delegate defined decisions as the process earns trust and meets agreed conditions.

AI can help explain evidence, translate discussion, compare proposals, and draft amendments. People can inspect, correct, or decline its assistance; AI has no vote.

Demonstrate the process with a willing community and competent institution in the EU, starting with a defined decision or budget. Publish the rules, software, costs, failures, and delivery so people elsewhere can judge and adapt it. A working example does not make adoption elsewhere automatic. Read the four-step proposal.

Measure participation, delegated authority, and delivery separately. An online recommendation can exist before it has governing authority. Each binding expansion needs a valid commitment and practical backing. Explore the model and maths.

The EU can act now

The EU already has democratic institutions. Its immediate task is to sustain the POE through national laws, EU legislation, and public budgets. It can improve participation alongside that economic work.

Read EU law and reform options for the existing routes and the additional decisions a common funding system would need.

A worldwide path from existing power

The proposal asks how people can bring power under democratic control where democracy is absent or dysfunctional.

First protect the three freedoms in practice. Then people can openly assess who can make decisions, block them, control resources, and enforce rules. Local people need an enforceable route to hold those powers accountable. The EU can advocate the same freedoms at home and abroad, using public evidence and consistent standards. The implementation approach sets out the practical questions.

Peace and personal opportunity

The long-term ambition is a world of effective democracies in which disputes are settled peacefully. If progress reduces military threats, countries can lower the defence spending needed to address them and direct more resources to people’s lives.

Democratic budgets decide how any savings are used. The POE can be funded now; a lasting reduction in threats can create additional possibilities over time.