European Charter of Active Citizenship; a common ground for civic activism

Since June 2005, the Active Citizenship Network – the European program of the Italian citizens’ organisation Cittadinanzattiva - and the Active Citizenship Foundation have been implementing a project aiming at improving the European and national policies on civic activism by involving civic organizations in the discussion and definition of the rights and duties of civic participation. The main objective of the project is to draft and promote a European Charter of Active Citizenship based on the practical and theoretical knowledge of civic organizations.

Best practices

In order to define the rights that will be stated in the future Charter, the project team and its partners (coming from Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Slovenia) have collected 50 Best Practices of Civic Participation in fields such as consumers, health, youth, environment and women’s rights that demonstrate that these rights are achievable and are already being implemented even if not legally bounded. Other sources of information were a research on official documents of the European institutions; Civic Organisations’ documents and existent studies and researches on the themes of civic participation, active citizenship, civil dialogue and participatory democracy and as well as other charters and conventions dealing directly or indirectly with the theme of citizens’ participation in the policy-making at local, national and international level.

Consultation

After a first discussion on the Charter’s draft with the partners, which was held in February, an enlarged consultation will take place during March and April. For more information, please surf to: www.activecitizenship.net/projects/project_charter_right_civic_participation.htm.

Cecília Fonseca, Active Citizenship Network / Cittadinanzattiva, Rome

This article was puclished in Politeia Newsletter 41 - March 2006