These European Civic Days were organised by the European Civic Forum (created in 2005 by the association CIDEM – Civic Mindedness and democracy - and the French League of education). This event has the support of the European Commission’s “Europe for citizens” programme and the French Presidency.
Structured around three keywords - mobility, dialogue and participation –, the event aimed at fostering a civic and popular ownership of the European construction, involving citizens in concrete European scale-projects. Hundreds of associations were represented. Speakers included Gerard Onesta – Vice-President of the European Parliament, Jean Pierre Jouyet - French Minister for European Affairs, Roselyne Bachelot - French Health Minister, and Segolene Royal - President of the Regional Council Poitou Charentes.
EPHA intervened in the workshop entitled “Associations and NGOs: active European citizenship in practice. The case of NGOs acting in the social field”. It aimed at asking the following questions: How do associations working in the social field participate in the European construction? To what extend do they participate in the emergence of an active European citizenship?
In its presentation, EPHA presented the commonly used "Participation Scale" (introduced by Sherry Arnstein):
8 Citizen control
7 Delegation of power
6 Partnership
5 Reinsurance
4 Consultation
3 Information
2 Therapy
1 Manipulation
Currently, in the EU, the rung depends on the concerned topic, though consultation is often the privileged one.
Advice on lobbying at EU level were given to local and national associations representatives. These include contacting their MEPs and monitoring Your Voice in Europe website.
Last but not least, one of the suggestions EPHA made was to resume the proposal of creating a Statute of a European Association [1]. This statute would enable non-profit organisations and associations to operate and be recognised throughout the European Union, allowing them:
to develop a real European civil society
to overcome the obstacles to freedom of association that persist in certain Member States.
This proposal also received the support of many other organisations. Roselyne Bachelot, French Health Minister, informed that conditions to resume the debate may be gathered under the French Presidency.
During these three days, it was strengthened that associations and NGOs are important vectors of education to citizenship and contribute to strengthen the notion of European identity. They are one of the key actors in this ownership. Their participation in a real civil dialogue could lead to the development of new modalities of participatory democracy, conceived as being in complementarity with representative democracy.
EPHA welcomes the interpreting in sign language.
A summary of the Workshop established by the Rapporteur can be found here.
EPHA related articles
How to foster civil dialogue in Europe?
Why do Europeans participate in civil society? A Eurofound report
**UPDATED** Making your voice heard in the EU - A guide for NGOs - Now also in Italian and Spanish
