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The Charter aims to bridge the gap existing in the Community rules about the rights, duties, powers and responsibilities of civic organisations acting in the public policies cycle. The Charter was drawn up on the basis of an analysis of 50 good practices in the relationship between citizens' organisations and institutions gathered in 10 European Union countries and of the comments, feedback and suggestions of scholars, citizens' organisations, and public institutions.

Download the European Charter of Active Citizenship (English version) – (Italian version)

Rationale of the project
The role of citizens and citizens' organizations as actors in public policy making in Europe is growing in the last 30 years.
Nevertheless, neither the Constitution nor the European legal systems of nation-states define exactly their role as participants in the political life as a fundamental right of the citizens themselves.
For this reason Active Citizenship Network together with Active Citizenship Foundation-FONDACA have decided to promote the drafting of a European Charter of Active Citizenship, which sets out the rights and duties of civic organizations that participate in the decision-making processes related to public policies.

Aim of the project
To develop the concept of " Civic Participation", mentioned in the European Constitution (Art. 47 and Art. 72 , second part, but then not very thorough.

The importance of " civic organizations " was recognized through the identification of specific needs, identifying best practices and proposing initiatives related to civic participation.
Whatever the rights and duties for these types of organizations in relation to national and European institutions are not specified.

Consortium
This project was implemented with partner organizations from Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Malta, Poland , Portugal, Romania , Slovenia and Turkey.

Activities
The main activities have involved the following steps:

  • collection of 50 good practices on civic participation in the countries involved in the project;
  • creation of on-line database to collect and share these best practices;
  • starting from the good practices identified and previous research carried out ACN on civic activism in Europe, drafting of the Charter in collaboration with partner organizations;
  • Official presentation of the Charterduring European Conference held in Vienna in May 2006.

Project duration: 2005-2006

The project was supported by the DG Education and Culture of the European Commission

With unrestricted supported by Unicredit

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