Council Meeting Berlin
17 - 19 March 2006

Report

On 17 - 19 March, a Council meeting of Citizens of Europe took place in Berlin. Present were Frank Burgdörfer, Sam Schatteman, Birgit Jöbstl, Andreas Heindl, Anny Velkova, Tobias Kunow, Christian Krekel as members of the Council, Wojtek Bialozyt and Elizabeth Dalmau as guests plus our EVS-volunteer Gita Vasickova.

Throughout the last year 'Citizens of Europe' made significant progress in developing a truly European network and realising projects with a European scope. Therefor the revision of the organisation's legal framework and profile as well as the discussion of future targets and activities were necessary.

Here are the most important results:

1. The sole right of legal representation of the association "Citizens of Europe e.V." was extended to the Treasurer and the Secretary General - a step which has become necessary in order to enable them to fulfill their tasks without the President or the Vice-President. In parallel, all authorised representatives got obliged to inform the whole board without delay of all acts he/she undertakes in the name of the Citizens of Europe. The statutes now also allow for two Vice-Presidents.
   
   
2. The association's Rules of Procedure (for council membership, for voting by email within the council, for Citizens' projects and for cancellations by event participants) were discussed intensively in the light of recent experience and current needs.
   
   
3. During a debate on the profile and the aims of our network, all participants agreed that 'Citizens of Europe' stands for democratic values and a truly European approach aiming to overcome national horizons. We do not promote specific ideologies but rather provide forums for controversial debates. And we want to involve and address people of different age, with different backgrounds and with different visions.
   
   
4. Two new kinds of action were discussed in depth then: ''European Forums' and 'Training for Europe'. 'European Forums' will be weekend events on specific topics at changing locations. Our aim is to develop a framework which makes the realisation of such a forum as simple as possible. The first forums are already in preparation. 'Training for Europe' will support activists who want to realise own projects.
   
   
5. We discussed the project 'Our Constitution' of one of our members. Here the idea is to write a constitution based on surveys which include as many people as possible. The whole approach is based on the use of IT-technology. We agreed to stay in contact with the initiators in order to explore possibilities for support.
   
   
6. Based on the debate about our profile, we decided to co-operate in youth projects more selectively than in the past and assure that all our activities are related to the strengthening of our network, to the development of our common platform and to the realisition of projects aiming to foster European civil society. After a discussion of the request of Democracy International regarding the 'Citizens Initative for a Citizens Initiative', we decided to get into negotiations about support or partnership. Regarding the IP-TV-Channel 'Eyes of Europe' we agreed to get in contact with the organisers for concrete talks.
   
   
7. Tobias Kunow presented the current state of the project "My Europe", Sam Schatteman explaine the current situation of "E(U)SA 2020" and Christian Krekel gave us an overview regarding our "Project Management and Presentation Platform" currently under development.
   
   
8. On the internet platform 'openBC.com' some 500 people have joined already our forum 'Citizens of Europe'. However, this forum is not continuously active, discussions take place only from time to time. We agreed that this forum as such is in line with our general aims and that it can attract people and provide an additional channel for spreading information about our activities. Therefor we will keep it.
   
   
9. We decided to organise a "Citizens Weekend" in autumn, which will be open to everybody interested. This meeting will bring together people active in different projects and people with new ideas or interest to get involved. There will be a presentation of the various Citizens' activities and opportunity for the presentation and development of new ideas.
   
   
10. The next Council meeting will take place in one year, then again in our office in Berlin. As all organisational and legal matters are settled for now, we hope to be able to focus on project work until then.