Promoting Common Values Across Europe

1. Project purpose

The primary aim of this project is to promote European values such as the rule of law, democracy, transparency, press freedom, equality and solidarity across Eastern European Member States and in potential Candidate Countries.

Furthermore, the project’s goal is to encourage participants to become active citizens and engage in the democratic process at local, national and international level. We find it of utmost importance to ask the citizens about their attitude towards the EU and its values, while we would also want them to identify the challenges the organisation is facing, and, if possible, offer their solutions.

We intend to reach these goals through the implementation of interactive debate events that will explore certain EU-related topics like the use of EU funds, sustainability, the future of the EU, citizen attitudes towards EU-membership and values, and tools of active citizenship.

The project will also foster citizens’ understanding of the EU as a community of shared values, and there will be a special focus on the active involvement of citizens with both proven and new formats like interactive tours, a photo and essay writing competition on the major challenges of the EU and what measures would be essential to be taken in their opinion to tackle these, live quizzes, interviews on how they see the EU in 10 years, treasure-hunt type events and an online survey on EU challenges and the future of EU .

2. Target audience

In the broadest sense, our target audience is the citizenry of the participating countries, and our events and activities will be open for all, but we aim to focus on two more specific groups:

1) the youth, including university students, young professionals, and workers, as they are the next generation who will shape the future of the European community,

2) Citizens living in the countryside, as the presence of civil society is weaker in rural areas, and the penetration of European values is less prevalent there than in the capitals and the major cities of the applicant countries.

In Romania, EFOR will be organizing the activities in two cities – Cluj-Napoca and Constanța.

We plan to reach the broadest audience possible via real-life events and online activities as well and intend to carry out an EACEA project even more successful than the previous one, where we reached 1,400 citizens directly and 200,000 indirectly.

The activities will take place at three levels – international, national and local. Throughout the project, we aim to utilise our existing international and local CSO networks that were developed during our previous EACEA project.

We intend to further strengthen these ties, while also extending this network to the Republic of North Macedonia and to Kosovo, two countries that are on their path to join the EU community. We believe that it is crucial for the future of the Union to promote European values outside its borders.

To learn from each other’s experience and to elevate the project to a cross-national level, we plan to organize two exchange activities to all project beneficiaries. One event would be an online workshop where the Hungarian and the Romanian consortium members could share their experiences on how they benefited from their EU-membership, while the Macedonian and Kosovar partners can elaborate on their best practices to mobilize their citizenry and promote active citizenship and democracy, as well as on the lessons learned from their activities promoting European values.

The project and the survey results will be disseminated via a magazine-styled handbook summarizing all project activities in an entertaining format with interviews, on-site reports and infographics, translated into 5 languages in total and disseminated online and at the project closing ceremonies in all participating countries.

Furthermore, we aim to add a sustainability element to this new project, which would include the organization of the project activities in a sustainable way, as well as extending the topics discussed during the activities to sustainable development in Europe, and partnering with local CSOs with considerable expertise on this field.

3. Project activities:

International online preparatory activities and a kick-off meeting, including creation of methodology of the survey on attitudes towards EU and European values
Launch events in Cluj and Constanța addressing current EU challenges, how is it reflected in local affairs
Public debate on sustainability within and outside the EU
Local guided tours on EU investments in Cluj and Constanța
International action online – a debate on a relevant topic for all project partners and countries
International online workshop on EU membership and citizen mobilization, as well as sharing best practices (challenges, rule of law) (webinar with the participation of project managers per country and at least one local representative per city)
Photo and essay competition launched at national level
Online survey on attitudes towards the EU and european values
Closing ceremony – Presentation of project results and launch of project handbook

4. Project calendar: