• Engaging civil society in cross-border regions for the future of Europe

    Despite conflictual past experiences, cross-border flows and intercultural engagement have become a part of many citizens’ everyday life in border regions, therefore considered as laboratories of the European integration. However, those have not been spared by the rise of populism and the growth of Euroscepticism. So how can we encourage civil society in border regions to participate in the debate on the future of Europe? This was the core question of the project TEIN4citizens, which was organised by nine members of the Transfrontier Euro-Institut Network (TEIN).

    Between March 2019 and April 2021, five forums took place in different cross-border regions. They brought together citizens, local, regional as well as EU level stakeholders, representatives of NGOs and experts from various border regions, in order to discuss five topics: EU citizenship & Human rights; Minorities & Integration; Civil Society Engagement; Multilingualism & Identity as well as Borders in Europe. 

    680 persons from 24 European countries participated in the forums, conferences, workshops and panel discussions held in five cross-border regions. They exchanged their experiences of living in border regions and shared their thoughts on the future of Europe with local, regional and EU politicians, with the aim to contribute to policymaking at the respective levels.

    In order to give even more citizens the opportunity to join the debate, five thematic online surveys were established based on the ideas discussed during the events mentioned above. Altogether, we received 772 responses from 25 European countries. 82% of the respondents came from border regions.

    For further dissemination, the ideas and recommendations, expressed during the workshops and debates as well as in the online surveys, were summarised in different thematic reports dedicated to each topic and event. These reports have been sent to local and regional politicians at the different borders as well as representatives of European institutions such as the EU parliament, Commission and the Committee of regions, with the aim to share the project results with a larger audience and make the citizens’ voices heard.


    Final project report with all project activities and main conclusions from events and surveys

    Information template including the detailed number of participants per event and country

  • List of events

    In the following table you will find the links to the description of all the past events held in the framework of the TEIN4Citizens project.

    There is a lot of interesting information you can discover!

    Forum 1 What does it mean to be an EU citizen? Human Rights, Civic Rights, Entitlements and Obligations 11.03.2019 Belfast
    Forum 2 Old and New Minorities – The Relevance of Identities for Border Regions in Today’s European Union 3.-4.10.2019 Klagenfurt / Ljubljana
    Forum 3 Twin cities with regards to Civil Society 05.03.2020 Cieszyn
    Forum 4 Multilingualism and Identity in the 21st century Europe 09. / 11. / 18.03.2021 Girona / Online
    Forum 5 What kind of borders do citizens of cross-border regions want for the future of Europe? 13.-16.04. / 22.04.2021 Strasbourg / Kehl / Online
    Student project (Re-)Bordering Europe? Views and Voices of Citizens and Non-Citizens; a digital story-telling project 15.03.-08.04.2021 Online

     


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