Stakeholder consultation is a cornerstone of participatory policymaking in the EU. Engaging citizens, businesses, civil society, experts, and public authorities helps ensure that policies reflect diverse perspectives, are grounded in real-world experience, and respond to needs across Member States. Effective consultation enhances transparency, legitimacy, and accountability, and contributes to more relevant, practical, and impactful EU policies throughout the policy cycle.

Milieu supports EU institutions to design, manage and analyse high-quality consultation processes for impact assessments and evaluations. We use a wide range of qualitative and quantitative methods, including surveys, interviews, focus groups, workshops, expert panels and targeted outreach to specialised or hard-to-reach groups. Our multilingual capacity and network of European associates enable consultations in all official EU languages. We combine digital tools with tailored sampling and communication strategies to ensure balanced participation across Member States and stakeholder categories. We systematically analyse consultation inputs to identify trends, capture divergent views and integrate robust evidence into policy analysis.