“Vote 4 Your Europe” European Citizenship project

Vote 4 Your Europe is a project in the frame of the European Citizenship programme of the European Commission. In this project, EProjectConsult works together with 8 European partners on democratic engagement and civic participation.

The main objective of this project is to find new tools for citizenship awareness. This will be done through the implementation of workshops that will compare and discuss the political agendas in the beneficiary countries.

The goals for this project are:

• Motivating EU citizens to vote and encouraging their active democratic participation;
• Developing a stronger sense of ownership of the European project;
• Provoking a debate on the rise of Euroscepticism and its implications for the voting process and future of the EU.

During this project, there are a lot of challenges that will be addressed. A few examples of these challenges are:

• The low turnout at the European Parliament elections of 2014 and the ways of motivating people for the upcoming elections in 2019
• Bringing the European Union closer to the citizens making the European Union more democratic
• The need for a dialogue about the future of the European Union and a need for democratic participation

The project will consist of 3 transnational activities In Bulgaria, Portugal and Germany.

Event 1 “Youth space: why voting is important”

The aim of the event is to address the declining political participation of young people, and to debate why is crucial to be democratically engaged and how to increase youth interest and engage young people in democratic elections, using different tools such as mock elections, informational campaigns, ways of contacting youth, lowering the voting age, adapting the electoral system, etc.

Event 2 “Democracy tourists”

The aim of the event is to increase people’s interest in civic participation usin creative ways to show democracy in action. Every project partner presented democratic practices through videos, interviews, photographs, storytelling, etc. Showing the national aspects in the field, good/bad democratic practices were shared. Specific ways to create a more democratic Union were discussed.

Event 3 “A democracy day”

The aim of the event is to present the state of democracy in the EU, democracy’s forgotten turning points and provoke debate on the rise of Euroscepticism and future of the EU after the elections. We fostered a constructive dialogue on the EP turnout rates and understanding the weakness and strengths of the EU project as a useful, constructive and positive driver for European integration.

Next to these 3 transnational activities, every project country will have a workshop called “A game of opinions”. In this workshop, the political agendas of local parties and European bodies will be compared with each other, but also with the opinions of individuals. 

The project consists of the following partners:

• Association Expert Pool – Bulgaria (EXPBG) (Lead Partner)
• Union of Associations MULTIKULTURA – Poland
• Shoqata Shqiptare e Ambientalisteve Industriale (AAIE) – Albania
• APSHSTDC – Portugal
• PROFAT – Lithuania
• Institute for Innovation, Design and Entrepreneurship – Spain
• PEIPSI CTC – Estonia
• M2C Institut – Germany
• EUROPEAN REPUBLIC – Greece
• Eprojectconsult – Italy

International meetings: