For many years CEDAG has joined its voice to other civil society networks in advocating for genuine dialogue and participation in decision-making processes. It is now more than two years that the Lisbon treaty is in place and art.11 on an open, transparent and regular dialogue with European Institutions remains an unfulfilled promise.

Three main structural problems lie at the heart of the issue - the first is the lack of a common definition of civil dialogue, the second is the gap between policy makers and the rest of the population and third a gap between CSOs who are inside the Brussels arena and those who are outside and don’t get informed.

The EU can appear abstract – indeed much of the discussions that take place there are far-removed from the ground level. As a result, often at national level there is lack of interest, which makes a difficult double role for the NGOs who are attempting coordinate this. Moreover, national and European institutions should be more supportive of the EU project and take the responsibility for educating and informing citizens on EU processes and opening spaces of dialogue with them.

The scarce involvement of civil society in the Europe 2020 strategy through the national reforms programmes shed the light on how distant political processes are in practice and how disconnected the national and European realities can be from one another.

The purpose of the conference which will take place on 8th December 2011 in Prague is to give to national and European NGOs an opportunity to discuss domestic and european policy-making and how to enhance participation and dialogue between civil society and Institutions. The plan to proclaim 2013 a European year of citizens makes this a timely meeting for NGOs to express their views and join forces helping to bridge the gap between the national and the European level.

Programme of the conference

This one day conference will be structured around three main parts :

I. Plenary session with the 3 key speakers to open the conference followed by

II. Two workshops addressing European and national aspects of participation

III. Plenary discussion of the results of the day with reports from the workshops.

Overall, the conference will address the general and specific objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy. The opening plenary session will deal with the general approach of the 2020 strategy including the highest profile target in relation to employment. The two subsequent workshops will address the target on education and poverty/social exclusion encouraging participants to share expertise and point to good practices.

The following issues will be dealt with in the thematic workshops :

1. Education (2020 target is reducing school drop-out rates below 10%, at least 40% of 30-34–year-olds completing third level education),

2. Poverty / social exclusion (2020 target is at least 20 million fewer people in or at risk of poverty and social exclusion).

The other 2020 target is for 75% of people aged 20-64 to be employed. This is a very wide objective which cuts across themes and, therefore, is best addressed in the introductory session.

The list of speakers/experts will be designed to both inform and engage participants. The discussions will be chaired in such a way as to ensure a concentration on drawing out contributions which address the questions of

• What is the impact of EU policies at the national level ?

• What is the interaction of national and EU policy-making ?

• How can the national level and the European level be better aligned ? How can public participation be encouraged ?

Final discussion in Plenary

Building on the discussion of the day, participants will draw recommendations for Institutions and NGO’s (European and national) on how to remove some bottlenecks which stand in the way of progress and participation in the national and European contexts.