Changing Europe from below
Democracy in Europe
As one of the broadest and multifaceted democracy in the world, Europe is nowadays, with almost 500 million inhabitants among the EU 27 Members States and even in a larger spectrum as for the Council of Europe, a leading actor worldwide in Citizens Participation and Participatory Democracy.
Now more than ever, with the new 6 priorities of the European Commission for the 2019-2024 period, Democracy is highlighted as one of the most important topics. The “new push for European democracy” and its programmatic assets states the importance to develop the Democratic life of European Citizens by addressing the raise of populistic movements, the challenges posed by Brexit, the effects and possibilities that the European Elections 2019 put on the table as well as the radical effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Council of Europe is more than ever fighting to see respected its values and fundamental pillars of Human Rights, Democracy and Human Rights, working on it through the commitment of States, Local Authorities, Parliaments and civil society.
ALDA, as a Civil Society Organisation, is engaged with members and partners to make Europe more citizens’ oriented, more inclusive, participative and sustainable. In this regard The Conference on the Future of Europe is one of the main processes ongoing which ALDA is involving in, that gives us the opportunity to work for making European Citizens’ voices heard, focusing our work in cooperation with other networks on the rule of law, democracy, participation, EU in the world, green deal, digitalization and EU in the world.
ALDA in action
ALDA for the Conference on the Future of Europe
The Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) aims at developing proposals “out of the box” for the future of Europe and it will end on May 2022, during the French Presidency.
The Conference is organised around 4 main actions :
Multilingual Digital Platform:
the place for citizens to share ideas and send online submissions to be collected, analysed, monitored and published throughout the Conference;
Decentralised events:
online, in-person and hybrid events held by people and organisations as well as national, regional and local authorities across Europe;
European Citizens’ Panels:
will discuss different topics and put forward their proposals; they will be representative in terms of geographic origin, gender, age, socioeconomic background and/or level of education;
Conference Plenaries:
sessions to ensure that the recommendations from the national and European citizens’ panels, grouped by themes, are debated without a predetermined outcome and without limiting the scope to pre-defined policy areas. The Conference Plenary will be composed of representatives from the European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission, as well as representatives from all national Parliaments, on an equal footing and citizens.
ALDA is actively part of the process following different paths:
Being part of the Steering Committee of the Civil Society Convention for the Future of Europe, where ALDA coordinates the cluster on The Union’s democratic foundations, and how to strengthen democratic processes governing the European Union. On this regard, we have set numbers of meetings with the members of the Convention to elaborate proposals. We are also working to be represented in the plenary as civil society networks.
A series of activities are in the pipeline in the upcoming months, stay tuned!
A communication campaign (campaign to be done and link to be added here) raising awareness on the importance of citizens participation throughout the whole process
And much more…!
CERV Programme
The Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) programme has the objective of protecting and promoting the rights and values as enshrined in the Treaties, the Charter and in the applicable international human rights conventions. Moreover, the CERV programme supports civil society organisations and other stakeholders active at local, regional, national and transnational level, building up on the multi-annual experience of the REC Programme and the Europe for Citizens programme. The latter, also thanks to the action of ALDA, has managed to achieve major results in promoting local engagement in EU democracy, encouraging debate about European issues, developing active citizenship and fostering intercultural exchange and mutual understanding.
Council of Europe
ALDA since its foundation has had a statutory and close connection with the work of the Council of Europe especially when it comes to support Local Democracy and Good Local Governance.
Starting from the European Charter of Local Self- Government and throughout the implementation, supervision and development of the Local Democracy Agencies Program till the operational partnership with the Centre of Expertise for Good Governance and the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, ALDA is supporting the cooperation between Civil Society and Local Authorities for a sustainable local development.
Thematic areas of action
Migration, Environment, Urban sustainability
Social inclusion, Digitalisation, Gender equality
Let's connect
Get in touch with us to know more about our advocacy action!
ALDA Team
Email
Tel: +32 (0)2 430 24 08