General objective

To foster a sense of ownership of the European Union among its citizens.

Rationale: The European Union seems to be experiencing a moment of diffidence by the part of its citizens. The institutions are perceived as distant and unapproachable and the legislation processes are felt little democratic. The result of the Irish referendum on ratifying the EU reform treaty is meaningful. According to a post-referendum survey carried out by Eurobarometer (18 June 2008), the main reasons for not voting are a lack of knowledge and the difficulty of understanding the issues raised by the referendum, while the main argumentation of the “no” voters to explain their choice is the lack of information. In order to construct a closer Europe, more involvement, interaction and participation are essential. The sense of citizenship needs to be developed and continually cultivated through the transparency of the governing bodies and enhanced dialogue with the people. If the European Union wants to grow democratic and inclusive, it needs to be constantly open to its citizens and able to receive their contributions, opinions and ideas. A stronger bridge is needed to move the EU bodies and initiatives closer to the community.

Specific objective: To encourage the dialogue between European citizens and the institutions of the EU, empowering citizens as regards EU policies and their impact, and ensuring appropriate follow up of citizens' opinions by the EU institutions.

Rationale: The feeling of European citizenship still needs to be improved and developed. The direct involvement of the people and the open dialogue with the institutions and bodies represent an effective measure to strengthen the perception of inclusion, participation and empowerment. The project aims at involving a wide range of citizens and different institutional actors in order to maximise the exchange of opinions and ideas and to create an open environment where the sense of ownership of the European Union among its citizens can be fostered. Thanks to the participation of different groups of citizens, the EU can gain a more solid and democratic base to evolve within itself and to offer its contribution to the world.

Summary of the project

The general aim of the project is contributing to fill in the gap between different typologies of citizens and European Institutions through active participation and dialogue.

The specific aims of the project are the following:

informing and spreading knowledge about the Lisbon Treaty
informing citizens of the tools allowing the participation in the democratic building of Europe
providing the EU institutions with a list of reccomendations and suggestions (made by the citizens) for the active involvement of the citizens

Firstly, these objectives will be reached by organising in Milan a Transnational Conference on the Lisbon Treaty, in particular on the aspects connected to participative democracy, to the Chart of Rights, to the changes in the Institutional organisation underlying how being part of Europe positively affects citizens’ daily lives. The conference, that will be held in a Room of the Presidency of the city Council of Milan, will give a wide space for debating these issues. The speakers will be experts and policy makers at European, National and Transnational level. The participants will be representatives and trainers from the transnational partner organisations and different typologies of citizens. Before the Conference, the trainers involved will be provided with a short training in each partner countries.

Caritas will be in charge of the introductory module of the package on the Lisbon Treaty whose main themes will be participative democracy, new institutional framework and Chart of Rights. Then each partner will prepare one or more modules on the themes identified as interesting for the chosen beneficiaries.

After the Conference in Milan, two days of transnational meeting will be dedicated to the joint adaptation of the modules to different contexts.

Besides, the partners will work at distance for the joint elaboration of a common tool to detect and elaborate the recommendations for the EU Institutions.

Each transnational partner will select the participants that will be trained in the panels through interviews. The EU partners will experiment the training package with their beneficiaries. The selected groups will participate in panels: there will be presented interactive lessons on the Lisbon treaty and on active participation of citizens to the European Institutional and political life, but also on an active use of the possibilities offered by the EU to participate to a democratic EU building.

Each group will elaborate a list of reccomendations for the European Commission, trying to identify the best ways for involving citizens.

At the end of the project the partners will organise a final last public meeting inviting policy makers at local and national levels or European level, the groups of participants and other citizens. The reccomendation list will be presented and discussed. In Milan, one or more MEPs will be invited for a direct debate with the citizens that participated in the panels.

A monitoring report will be requested to all the partners and C.A. will write the final common recommendations for the Commission. A final report on the conclusions reached in each country by the partners will be written by C.A. after the final meeting in Milan where a trainer or a project manager from each transnational partner will meet for a confrontation on the experimentations carried out, an auto-evaluation of the project, for answering to the interviews for the final internal evaluations and for planning together a concrete follow-up of the project.

The results dissemination will be done through the partners’ websites, a CD Rom and a final publication (containing the final version of the modules of the training package) in English and in partners’ languages. The results will also be disseminated in the national final seminars, via the media available for partners, and partner’s local, national and transnational networks.

Members of Partnership

Coordinator

FONDAZIONE CARITAS AMBROSIANA
Italy
URL: www.caritas.it

Partners

ЕВРОПЕЙСКИ ИНФОРМАЦИОНЕН ЦЕНТЪР
Bulgaria
URL: www.europeinfocentre.bg

EUROPEAN CULTURAL ORGANISATION-SOCIAL EDUCATION
Ellas
URL: www.ecose.org

POLSKA FUNDACJA IM. ROBERTA SCHUMANA
Poland
URL: www.schuman.org.pl

PROMOCIÓN EDUCATIVA SOCIEDAD COOPERATIVA
Spain
URL: www.promocioneducativa.es

EKONOMISK FÖRENING SERUS
Sweden
URL: www.serus.se

Further information on Lisbon’s Treaty (in all official EU languages)

Final educational products

You may download the final educational products here:

DOEUKNOW_GAME_EN.pdf (English version, PDF file, 96 KB)
DOEUKNOW_GAME_EL.pdf (Ellenic version, PDF file, 141 KB)

Final publication

The final publication in Ellenic, in PDF format. Download here:

doeuknow_final_pub_el_dis.pdf (Ellenic version, PDF file, 704 KB)

Photo Gallery

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INDEX General photos: 1 2 3 4 5 Citizens' Panels:  6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Final Conference:  21 22 23 24 25

**This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This communication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.