Citizens’ engagement and participation

• boosting citizens' awareness of rights and values and increasing their degree of engagement in society and with the EU;
• enabling people to deepen their knowledge of the EU institutions and policies, and better understand the EU's achievements and benefits;
• strengthening democratic participation, with a special focus on inclusion of younger and older people, women in all their diversity, mobile EU citizens and people with disabilities;
• stimulating reflection and debates related to the call priorities;
• strengthening the European character of the elections to the European Parliament;
• reaching large numbers of people through events, information material, and (social) media, making best use of new technologies and strengthening media literacy;
• reaching those citizens not active in civic participation in their everyday life;
• making it possible for members of the EU public to communicate their main concerns to the Commission so that these can be addressed through political commitment.

The objective of this Call for proposals it to promote citizens' and representative associations’ participation in and contribution to the democratic and civic life of the Union by making known and publicly exchanging their views in all areas on Union action.

It aims to support projects promoted by transnational partnerships and networks directly involving citizens. These projects will gather a diverse range of people from different backgrounds in activities directly linked to EU policies, giving them an opportunity to actively participate in the EU policymaking process in areas related to the programme's objectives.

This Call for proposals aims to support the following policy initiatives: European democracy action plan, EU Citizenship report 2020 , Strategy to strengthen the application of the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the EU.

The call provides an opportunity to broadly cover a variety of policy areas, and to contribute to the promotion of EU values, the rule of law, fundamental rights and democracy. While maintaining a bottom-up approach, there will be a specific focus on:

• the 2024 European Parliament elections, which are central to strengthening and nurturing democracy in the EU, with further efforts needed to promote the participation of citizens in the elections. This priority could also promote EU citizenship rights and contribute to the implementation of the European democracy action plan and the EU Citizenship Report 2020;
• exploring how the COVID-19 crisis has affected the democratic debate and the enjoyment of fundamental rights;
• innovative democratic approaches and tools to help citizens make their voices heard and publicly exchange views on all areas of EU action, notably digital tools (‘e-democracy’);
• countering disinformation and other forms of interference in the democratic debate, empowering citizens to make informed decisions by helping them identify disinformation and promoting media literacy, with journalists’ involvement;
• engaging citizens and communities in discussions and action related to our climate and environment; there is a growing interest of civil society and associations in discussing climate and green issues and proposing solutions to decision makers.