Please find below an extract of the 11th Bulletin of the Act4europe campaign, by Nico Berger, Coordinator of the Act4europe campaign, Social Platform.
The EU Presidency and our Foreign Ministers have been quite busy over the summer designing the IGC, and we were busy collecting information about their plans.
They will in fact make their decisions this coming weekend (interestingly enough before the other EU institutions have even finalised their opinions...).
The European Parliament is in the final stages of agreeing its draft report of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
We expect the Commission to publish its opinion by mid-September.
At the Brussels level, the Civil Society Contact Group (of the Social Platform) is organising informal meetings with all sorts of background actors in the EP, Commission, and the Permanent Representations of Member States to gather information and influence the process, so we can feed the act4europe campaign.
The campaign has grown significantly over the summer spreading into more countries, yet not all countries are covered and we are still seeking NGOs willing to coordinate the approach cross-sectorally in their country.
Time is pressing from now on, so you can already find the first call for action for this week (1-5 September) by clicking here.
In the last week of September we will send you the next call for action, this time with a sample letter, to be launched before the start of the IGC on 4 October when public attention is high.
By then we can also give you more detailed information about the structure of the IGC.
Within the next couple of weeks we will also publish our lobbying toolkit for the campaign that will give you all the necessary details for an easy participation in act4europe actions.
You will recieve a separate announcement.
On 7 October we are holding our next NGO event in Brussels aimed at NGOs from national level who have taken up coordinator roles by then and European NGO networks.
It will be an information and strategy meeting around the IGC campaign. It will be an afternoon event held in the building of the Social Platform, Avenue des Arts 43 in Brussels.
Please note the date in your diary, you will receive more practical information soon.
Looking forward to working with you over the next few months
Nicolas Beger Campaign coordinator
