Belgrade Open School with the support of “Europe for Citizens” Programme of the European Union implements the project “YOU4EU – Citizen Participation 2.0”. The aim of the project is to encourage citizens in Europe to take part in decision and policy - making processes.
Citizen participation in decision and policy - making processes is one of the main pillars of democracy and democratic culture in societies where citizens have power to be agents of change and have right to take part in debates about problems that occur in societies and take decisions on policies of public interest.
Thus, this project is designed to motivate citizens to participate in dialogues with stakeholders at both EU and national level.
The project is following up the positive momentum of revived debate over the future of the EU initialized in 2017 and important events, such as Brexit, 2019 European Parliament elections and published Strategy for credible enlargement perspective for the Western Balkans countries.
The Project activities will help citizens to grasp ideas and think about possible scenarios of the EU future presented in the European Commission’s White paper on the future of Europe. Facilitation of direct contacts between citizens and decision makers that will take place during this Project will also encourage citizens to express their own concerns over particular problems and define the issues which should enrich, shape and strengthen the EU agenda in the upcoming period. Together with this the project activities will provide the opportunity to citizens to challenge and discuss presented EU agendas and articulate criticism over the concrete EU activities and results.
The You4EU project activities will be implemented in 9 Member States and 2 Candidate Countries, directly underpinning citizens’ actions and decision making on European challenges of mutual concern, which is citizen-oriented, inclusive, forward-looking and constructive. Having this in mind the important aspect of this project is to enable peer exchange between Member States and Candidate Countries in many areas.
The project will use and support the enhancement of new media and new channels of communication in order to raise interest and include young people in abovementioned processes.
The project's priorities are to encourage citizens to engage in active dialogue on the future of Europe and to review mechanisms to counter the rising Euro-skepticism in, and outside the European Union.
General aim of the project is to shift the position of European citizens from passive actors to agents of change.
Specific aims of the project are to:
- Shift position of European citizens from passive actors to agents of change, empowered and encouraged for democratic and civic participation at the Union level;
- Develop understanding of citizens’ role and possible impact in the EU policy making process;
- Enrich civic debate and e-participation of citizens on key developmental policies of the EU;
- Enable exchange of experience between EU Member and Candidate Countries.
The project consists of interrelated set of activities which enable: a) direct contacts between citizens and decision makers for discussing contemporary challenges and perspectives of EU policies from citizens’ point of view; b) Europe-wide research on the citizens opinion over the future EU agenda; c) transnational multi-stakeholder debates on how to use concrete EU achievements and benefits in order to reinforce the EU's social and political cohesion, and d) development of innovative instruments for direct participation in decision making for citizens by citizens.
Expected results:
- European citizens empowered and motivated to lead debates;
- Developed recommendations for improvement of particular aspects of EU policies;
- Broadened potential impact of individual initiatives;
- Increased pull of knowledge, know-how and good practice for combating Euroscepticism.
Project activities are going to be implemented in four phases:
- INCEPTION PHASE: Partners will start preparatory activities at the project with program development, setting a research methodology, action and communication plan, clarification of responsibilities, finance and administration rules, expected deliverables and deadlines, thematic focus of the contest and multi-stakeholder debates.
- RESEARCH PHASE: Project partners are going to collect citizens’ questions through social networks and various online platforms, which is going to result in creating survey and policy analysis consisted of 50 key questions. This policy analysis is going to be presented to stakeholders of interest at the EU level.
- ENGAGE PHASE: With intention to condense a gap in communication between policy makers and citizens, which leads to lack of trust and civic engagement, partnering organizations will organize online contest for proposing of innovative e-tool which has the aim to improve inclusion of citizens in decision making process and debating future development of the EU. Contest Citizens Participation 2.0 c will be organized on a pan European level covering both EU and non EU Member States as a wide polygon for creating innovative mechanisms for direct communication and participation in policy making.
- DEBATE PHASE: Project will invite citizens to act together and debate within framework of multi-stakeholder debates. Events will be organized in 4 participating countries: Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia. Topic of each of the debate will be based on inputs from direct contacts between citizens and decision makers, policy analysis and transnational recommendations for improvement of citizens` participation.
Four partners are included in project implementation: Belgrade Open School from Serbia, Institute Alternative from Montenegro, GONG from Croatia, PiNA from Slovenia and Access Info Europe from Spain. Project will directly include between 700 and 800 participants. Indirectly, around 370.000 citizens will be included and informed about the results of the project.
The Project is going to be implemented during the period of 18 months, from 1st of September 2018 until 29th of February 2020.
