Inclusive Europe for mobile EU citizens
The issue
Mobile EU citizens settling in another Member State need support to ease their democratic inclusion in the host society. Currently, support is often made available to third-country nationals and mobile EU citizens as a specific group often lack sufficient support. We aim to strengthen instruments for mobile EU citizens and expats to engage in EU political life on an everyday basis
The project targets mobile EU citizens and expats, helping to address the systemic underrepresentation of their views and low levels of democratic participation at national and EU levels.
Project supports and proactively encourages democratic participation of✔️ Mobile citizens, i.e. EU nationals residing in another European country,
✔️ Under-represented groups, including young and senior European expats,
✔️ EU level policymakers.
Our practical solution will be implemented through the Partner’s network in communities of our focus: Latvian expats abroad, Swedish expats abroad, expat communities living in Brussels. This bottom-up approach will ensure wide geographical coverage of member states and bring high value for further EU level engagement.
Three essential project elements
1. Understanding the needs and challenges faced by EU mobile citizens when engaging on EU-level issues
in order to select suitable topics of discussion.
2. Engaging mobile citizens in deliberation processes. Establishing a practical tool at the
Open2Vote platform for EU mobile citizens to learn about their rights and opportunities as well as
practically engage in deliberation processes (expressing their opinions and attitudes on important topics
through voting).
3. Improve the representation of the interests of mobile EU citizens by awareness raising among EU
public authorities. Considerable benefits from the practical engagement of target groups - project
will ensure valuable results - data on people’s attitudes towards certain questions that will be asked to
them using Open2Vote.eu platform. These results must be used further in communication with EU institutions
and integrated in lobbying processes.
Project partners
“Foundation of Public Participation” or organisation
MyVoice, Latvia. Grassroots NGO working in the field of civic digital participation and
public engagement. Develops digital tools for better civic participation.
Europeans Throughout the World, Belgium. Umbrella
organisation gathering Civil society organizations uniting mobile Europeans and engaged in civic interest
representation vis-a-vis EU institutional stakeholders.
Open Knowledge Sweden, Sweden. Works with the
community in the areas of open knowledge, civic participation and open data. Carries out research and
policy-related work.
The ECIT Foundation-European Citizen’s rights, Involvement and
Trust, Belgium. Youth-driven think tank that focuses on issues relating to European
citizenship issues, works with a range of different stakeholders to ensure European citizenship becomes more
than the sum of its parts.
Project period: November 2022 - April 2024
