Description:
Public deliberation mechanisms play an important role in the process of the EU public policy making because they are to compensate the shortage of representative democracy. One of them is social consultation carried out mainly by the European Commission. The paper consists of the analysis of open public consultation role in designing and implementing the EU sector policies. Their growing importance and frequency of use with regard to the economic policy and its kinds is clearly visible. The aims of such consultations are various. They are primarily used as an instrument of legitimacy of decisions taken by the Commission as well as an important source of information about the stakeholders’ opinions and stance. The case of social consultations concerning the transatlantic agreement TTIP is analysed here in detail due to the significance of social mass protests which used to occur and owing to the imp