Discovering the value of citizens’ participation Bucharest, 26-28 June 2019
The Bucharest phase of the project took place on 26-28 June 2019 alongside with the 8th Annual Forum of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR). Our initial intention was to demonstrate the the value-added nature of citizens’ involvement in the shaping and implementation of macro-regional strategies and put forward concrete proposals for future actions. As project participants came from all the four macro-regions our contribution went wll beyond the strictly defined frame of EUSDR and gave a special “touch” to our active presence.
Our Bucharest presence took two distinctive forms:
a) contribution to the various public forums of the 8th Annual Forum; a representative of the Danubiana Network was one of the speakers of a session aimed at revision of the EUSDR Action Plan. His idea to prepare a civil society promoted “shadow report” on the implementation of EU macro-regional strategies parallel to the release of the Report of the Commission at the beginning of 2021 received broad support.
b) in order to raise the profile of our project and through it the EUSDR Annual Forum itself project participants assisted by volunteers of our Romanian partner organisation, the APD in the form of a sponteneous street action in downtown Bucharest set up a mobile stand with info materials on EU macro-regional policies and started to collect ideas and opinions on macro-regions from passerbyers, mainly surprised local citizens (but we also met a group from France and students from the US). The response was absolutely positive: even if they had no idea whatsoever about the Danube Strategy and the ongoing Annual Forum, the view was unanimous that citizens’ participation is a must if the EU project would like to produce tangible results. Several hundreds citizens were contacted during the action who also received a Danube Survival Kit.
More about the 8th EUSDR Annual Forum: http://suerd.gov.ro/en/
And here is our project leaflet for Bucharest.
