Celje
Project name: Celje Po Moje (Celje by you)
People- and future-oriented
The municipality of Celje is the third largest city in Slovenia. It has around 50,000 inhabitants. Celje has strong traditions in industry, education, and sports. The municipality aims as improving, among other things, sustainable urban development, active citizenship, and innovative approaches to governance. One example of this is the piloting of a citizen's assembly (on sustainable mobility) which is a first in entire Slovenia.
The participation project, supported by the CONSUL DEMOCRACY platform, is at the heart of the innovative governance approach. The team at Celje got to know the platform through the Slovenian NGO Danes je nov dan, which introduced the platform as a tool for participatory democracy. Based on their recommendation and support, Celje decided to implement CONSUL DEMOCRACY for the participatory budgeting process of 2025.
Current use
In Celje the CONSUL DEMOCRACY platform has been used mainly for participatory budgeting, which allowed citizens to propose and vote on projects that directly shape their neighborhoods. The features that the administration uses are: citizen proposals (project submissions), voting (to select projects), and information and transparency functions (to share rules, results).
The projects proposed by citizens cover a wide range of themes. For example, in the environmental area they include tree planting, community gardens, improvements to parks and green spaces, and protective fences for amphibians (frogs). The latter one is especially interesting given the involvement of volunteering groups already active with helping frogs cross a busy road in migration season.
Social projects often focus on playgrounds for children, inclusive sports and leisure facilities, or community events. In terms of urban development, citizens suggest small but important improvements such as bicycle stands, better lighting, and making public spaces more accessible for people with disabilities.
The participatory budgeting process in Celje is a hybrid one. The CONSUL DEMOCRACY platform plays a key role in the submission and voting stages of the process, but also for transparency purposes. Parallel to the digital participation, the municipality also organizes in-person workshops and presentations in local communities, such as city districts and local councils, to ensure inclusiveness for those less familiar with digital tools.
Some numbers
The participatory budget of Celje municipality for the 2025 cycle is 250.000 euros, 0,35 percent of the overall city budget. Hitherto (29 sep 2025) over 2000 people have actively participated which equals to well above four percent of the entire city population (48.000). The participants submitted a total of 265 projects on which more than 5000 votes were cast.
The platform was slightly customized. The main 'customization' was the completion of the Slovenian translation of the platform. In terms of design and user experience, a few significant changes were made to the landing page as well as the process phases and forms.
The participatory budget phases were configured to align with the Celje participatory budget rules. Finally, Danes je nov dan and Celje integrated the city’s branding (Celje po moje, roughly translates to Celje my way) into the platform.
Creating public trust
For Celje, the main motivation to implement a form of digital partication was to strengthen the relationship between citizens and the local government. The way it does so is to provide a transparent and accessible channel for participation through CONSUL DEMOCRACY. The aim is to empower citizens to co-create their living environment, build trust in institutions, and ensure that local policies and investments reflect the real needs of the community.
Has that, after only one year of participatory budgeting, yielded any tangible results yet?
According to Celje administrators there have been several positive effects noticed. Citizens feel more included and listened to, which increases trust in the municipality. This was illustrated, by among other things, the feedback that Celje got at in-person events (part of the hybrid PB process) where municipality officials explained why certain projects were selected and others not.
Concrete examples include the participatory budgeting projects where proposals like new sports infrastructure, playgrounds, and other great ideas were selected and implemented. These outcomes show that citizen-driven initiatives can have a direct and visible impact on urban development.
Celje's learnings
One of the main challenges during the 2025 participatory budget boils down to the question: how do we truly motivate citizens to participate? While people generally agree that civic engagement is important, it has often proven difficult for Celje's participation team to encourage them to take the time to actively contribute, whether by submitting ideas or voting on proposals.
In general, the officials at Celje learned that citizen participation is not just about providing tools or opportunities, but about building a culture of trust and dialogue. People need to feel that their contributions are meaningful and that the municipality is genuinely listening.
Another key lesson is that participation works best when it is simple and accessible – the easier it is for people to engage, the more likely they are to take part. Finally, participation is a long-term process. It takes time to raise awareness, build confidence, and create habits of involvement within the community.
Another learning is that online platforms are powerful tools, but that they work best when combined with hybrid approaches to reach everyone. Local community leaders, like presidents of city districts and local councils, also play an important role in encouraging residents to participate. In some of the most succesfull cases, participants in the participatory budgeting went door to door with their neighbours garnering support for their or their neighbours' proposals.
Feedback on CONSUL
Celje has carried out two participatory budgeting processes at the same time: one for the general population and one for young people. Because the youth process was set as the main one, it was not possible to send notification to participants in the other, general bugeting process. The participation team at Celje has suggested targeted changes to the CONSUL DEMOCRACY interface to improve the internal messaging system.
t would be very helpful to have the option to send messages to different groups, like all registered users, people who submitted a project, winners, or those who needed to make corrections.
It would also helpful, according to them, if proposals in a participatory budgeting process, could be sorted more easily, for example by alphabetical order, by the date of submission, or by searching for the title. Another improvement would be the option to publish all projects that qualify for voting before the voting starts, and then activate the voting a few days later.
Last updated