TEIN4Citizens
Engaging civil society in cross-border regions for the future of Europe
Despite conflictual past experiences, cross-border flows and intercultural engagement have become a part of many citizens’ everyday life in border regions, therefore considered as laboratories of the European integration. However, those have not been spared by the rise of populism and the growth of Euroscepticism. So how can we encourage civil society in border regions to participate in the debate on the future of Europe?
This is the core question of the project TEIN4citizens, co-financed by the Europe for Citizens programme, which started last month. With this question in mind and their deep knowledge of the borders’ specificities, the members of the Transfrontier Euro-Institut Network (TEIN) started to develop the Engaging civil society in cross-border regions for the future of Europe project. Consisting of 5 forums taking place between 2019 and 2020 in the 5 border regions of the 9 project partners, the project will enable citizens not only to deepen their understanding of the EU but also voice their opinion about current trends and EU policy making processes.
Save the date of the following events planned:
The first forum will take place on the 11 March 2019 in Belfast and discuss the question “What does it mean to be an EU citizen? – Human Rights, Civic Rights, Entitlements and Obligations”.
In Cieszyn, on the Polish-Czech border, on the 13 August 2019*, a forum will focus on cross-border identity and look at the engagement of civil society in the context of twin cities.
A third forum will be dedicated to old autochthonous minorities and new migrant communities in a cross-border and European perspective. This forum will take place on the 4 October 2019* on the Austrian-Slovenian-Italian border.
In the Catalan border region, experts and citizens will reflect on multilingualism and identity in the 21st century Europe on the 20 March 2020.
A conclusive one-day forum will be dedicated to the question what kind of borders citizens of cross-border regions want for the future Europe – at a European and local level. This forum will take place in Strasbourg on the 21 Mai* 2020.
Each forum will gather local and EU level stakeholders, NGOs and experts from other borders together with 50 to 120 citizens from different social-economic backgrounds and with diverging opinions about European integration in order to propose conferences, debates, workshops and opportunities to get involved in cross border cooperation or in the EU policy making process.
*These dates might be subject to change, please check with the project coordinator.
For more information visit the TEIN website where we will publish regular updates on the events and other activities linked to this project:
http://www.transfrontier.eu/tein4citizens/
