CEE CN site

CEE Citizens Network received INGO's participatory status with the Council of Europe as from 28 December 2007.

INGO sessions

The first INGO session, where representative of CEE Citizens Network was invited, took place from 21 to 25 January 2008 in Strasbourg. CEE Citizens Network was represented on this meeting by Csaba Madarasz from Hungary. On April 14 - 16, 2008 Chuck Hirt attended the second meeting. He actively participated in Commission on Democracy and Civil Society.

After learning about the plans of Council of Europe to initiate the European Local Democracy Week, we thought that there might be some value in possibly better coordinating our efforts and with expectation to become a partner for that event we accepted the invitation to

International conference of the Council of Europe

IMPROVING GOVERNANCE AT LOCAL LEVEL

TOOLS AND STRATEGY

April 16 - 18, 2008, Piešťany, Slovak Republic

Slovak Ministry of Interior organized the Conference within the framework of the Chairmanship of the Slovak Republic in the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.

This Conference offered an opportunity to know more about and raise awareness of the European Local Democracy Week. As we learned, the "European Local Democracy Week" is a new project consisting of an annual European event with simultaneous national and local events organized by participating local authorities in all member States in order to foster the knowledge of local democracy and to promote the idea of democratic participation at a local level. A suitable and somewhat "symbolic" date to hold such events each year could be the week including 15 October, as the European Charter of Local Self-Government was adopted and opened for signature on that date in 1985.

Forum on Future of Democracy

October 14 -16, 2008, Madrid, Spain

We took part of planning and participated on Forum on Future of Democracy.

Regional NGO consultation on a Code on Good Practice on Civil Participation

October 21 - 22, Stockholm, Sweden

This consultation was one of four consultations that were organized across Europe by the Council of Europe in cooperation with local hosts. The principal objective of the Code of Good Practice is to contribute to an enabling environment for NGOs in Council of Europe Member States and Belarus by defining a set of general principles and guidelines for civil participation in decision-making processes at European level that are to be implemented at local and national level.

Chuck participated on behalf of the CEE Citizen Network in this event to share Citizen Network members' comments on a Code on Good Practice on Civil Participation.